Rome

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Rome, Without the Rookie Mistakes The first time we did Rome we landed at Fiumicino in late July, sweated through a 40-minute queue at the Colosseum we hadn’t booked, and paid €19 for two sad plates of pasta on a square near the Pantheon. A Roman friend later put it bluntly: “You came in the worst month, queued for the one thing you should pre-book, and ate where the menu has photos.” She wasn’t wrong. We came back in early October, did it properly, and the city went from exhausting to easy. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Italy, in One Sentence The Amalfi hotel wanted 320 euros a night for the second week of August, and my friend just slid his phone across the table so I could see it. “Or,” he said, scrolling, “the same room, last week of September, is 190.” We nearly booked August anyway, because everyone tells you the Italian coast in late September is “rolling the dice.” It isn’t. We swam in a sea warmer than it had been all summer, ate at a Positano terrace we’d have queued an hour for in August, and I’ll tell you below the exact dates mistake we almost made. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Where to Base Yourself for a First Trip to Rome It was a warm Friday night last April, our first in Rome, and my wife and I were standing at the mouth of a Trastevere lane at 10pm with one suitcase wheel jammed sideways in the cobbles. A trattoria roared two doors down. She’d picked the place off a dozen saved photos months earlier, and it was every bit as pretty as promised — except the Vatican, our first stop the next morning, was a 35-minute haul away, there was no metro within reach, and four flights of stairs stood between us and the room. Nobody had mentioned any of that. By breakfast we’d quietly rebooked, and that one bad call is exactly why I can now tell you the best area to stay in Rome for first-timers without the guesswork. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Why Rome Rewards Smart Budget Travelers Last November my wife and I checked into a tiny room in Monti, a ten-minute walk from the Colosseum, for €60 a night. Two streets over, an almost identical room with a grander lobby was going for €250. Same neighborhood, same cobblestones, same morning church bells. The only difference was that I’d spent twenty minutes the month before figuring out where the best budget hotels in Rome actually hide. That twenty minutes is what this guide hands you for free. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cheap Flights from London to Rome, Starting at £21 Gate 41, Stansted, last November, a 6:40am I’d booked three weeks earlier for a friend’s 40th in Rome. I’d paid £24 for the seat and was quietly smug about it — right up until the boarding agent eyed my cabin bag and asked if I’d paid for it. I hadn’t. That’s the open secret of cheap flights from London to Rome: the fare on the screen is rarely the fare you pay, and the gap is where most people lose their savings. Stick with me and you won’t. ...