My personal tips for conquering the chaos, eating the real food, and escaping to the coast when you need a breath of sea air.
Let’s start with a truth every traveler learns within five minutes of arriving: Rome does not care about your carefully planned schedule. The Eternal City operates on its own time, a whirlwind of vespas, ancient ghosts, and intoxicating energy that will either overwhelm you or change your life. I’ve been exploring its secrets for years, and my goal is to make sure it’s the latter.
To “do” Rome is not to tick off a list of sights. It’s to find the rhythm in its beautiful chaos. It’s about knowing which corner to turn to find the perfect plate of pasta, understanding how to see the icons without losing your mind in a crowd, and—this is key—knowing when to escape for a moment of calm. This is my personal playbook for not just seeing Rome, but truly feeling it.
The Big Three (But Done My Way)
You have to see the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon. These aren’t just tourist attractions; they are the opening chapter to the entire story of the Western world. But you don’t have to see them like everyone else.
My hard-and-fast rule for the Colosseum: book the last entry of the afternoon. As the golden hour sun streams through the arches, bathing the ancient stone in a warm, honeyed light, the crowds begin to thin. In that relative quiet, you can almost hear the roar of the past. It transforms from a chaotic tourist hub into a deeply moving monument.
From there, wander through the Forum, the sprawling heart of the ancient empire. Don’t stress about knowing what every single pillar and stone was for. Just walk the paths where Caesar and Cicero walked and let the scale of it all sink in. Then, prepare yourself for the Pantheon. It looks like just another impressive Roman building from the outside, but when you step inside and look up at the oculus—the giant, open hole in the ceiling—it’s a spiritual experience.
- Fun Fact: The Pantheon’s dome, a marvel of engineering, was the largest in the world for 1,300 years. The oculus is the building’s only light source, and watching a sunbeam move across the interior is like watching a celestial clock.
The Vatican: A Masterclass in Art & Crowd Control
A visit to Vatican City, the world’s smallest sovereign state, is essential. St. Peter’s Basilica will floor you with its sheer immensity and opulence. But the main event for many is the Vatican Museums, a seemingly endless collection of treasures culminating in the one and only Sistine Chapel.
Let me be your brutally honest guide here: if you do not book your tickets online well in advance, you will spend a significant portion of your precious life in a queue that snakes around the Vatican walls. It is a soul-crushing experience. This is the single most important “pro-tip” for Rome. Book ahead. Always. See Michelangelo’s masterpiece, but do it smartly.
The Real Rome: Where to Eat, Wander, and Truly Live
History is Rome’s bones, but food is its beating heart. Please, I beg of you, do not eat at a restaurant with a smiling host outside showing you a laminated menu with pictures. That is not where the magic is.
The magic is in the neighborhoods. Dive into the ivy-clad streets of Trastevere or the historic Jewish Ghetto. Head to Testaccio, the old slaughterhouse district, for some of the most authentic food in the city. Your mission is to find a small, loud trattoria and order one of the Roman “holy trinity” pastas: Cacio e Pepe (cheese and pepper), Amatriciana (tomato and cured pork cheek), or Carbonara. The real Carbonara has no cream, only eggs, Pecorino cheese, black pepper, and crispy guanciale. It’s a revelation.
After dinner, it’s time for the passeggiata (the evening stroll). This is when Rome truly shines. The air cools, and the monuments are lit up like giant, divine sculptures. Seeing the Trevi Fountain or Piazza Navona’s magnificent fountains at night, with the daytime crowds gone, feels like you have the city all to yourself.
The Sorrento Interlude: Your Escape Hatch to the Sea
Now, for my secret weapon against “Rome fatigue.” It happens to everyone. After a few days of pounding ancient cobblestones, absorbing millennia of history, and navigating the thrilling chaos, your senses will be on overload. This is when you pull the escape hatch.
This is when you dream of Sorrento.
After the magnificent, earthy tones of Rome, Sorrento is a splash of vibrant, sun-drenched color. I love to tell people to think of it as the perfect second act. Just the thought of it can be a relief: sitting on a cliffside terrace overlooking the impossibly blue Bay of Naples, with the scent of lemon groves in the air and a glass of ice-cold, locally made limoncello in your hand.
From Sorrento, you can take a ferry and see the Amalfi Coast from the water, or take a short, easy train ride to the haunting ruins of Pompeii. It’s a complete change of pace that makes you appreciate Rome even more when you return. It’s the sea to Rome’s stone, the calm to its storm. You don’t need to spend a week there; sometimes just knowing it’s a quick train ride away is enough to keep you going.
Rome isn’t a city to be conquered in a weekend. It’s a magnificent, complex, and deeply human place that reveals its secrets slowly. So embrace the chaos, eat with gusto, walk until your feet ache, and when it all gets to be too much, let your mind drift south to the lemon-scented air of the coast. That is how you do Rome.