Plan a 4-Day Trip to Rome (Itinerary) — Travel Through The Earth

That Time We Ate Our Way Through The Eternal City

Fancy a long weekend getaway? Here's our guide to seeing as much history and eating as many carbs as possible in the land of the Romans.

The Italian capital is a place of wonder, architectural beauty and – perhaps most importantly – a place of delicious food. You'll need the energy after all the walking you'll do, anyway.

Here's a tip to get started: time your trip to coincide with the first Sunday of the month – that way you get free entry to museums.

Day 1

We landed in Rome just after midday and getting to our hotel was a scramble. We had to frantically Google to find out how much we should be paying because taxis were all shouting prices that seemed extortionate. So here's what you need to know: you should only be charged a flat-rate fare of €30 for everyone in your taxi from Ciampino airport to one stop in the city centre. Drivers will try and charge more, but that's the price fixed by the city (you'll even see the price list in the taxi!).

We picked a hotel near the Ponte Sisto bridge, just across from the lively Trastevere area. The location was great because everything was within walking distance. Campo de Fiore, for instance, a market buzzing with tourists and locals, was just around the corner.

But we'd already planned our first pitstop. Emma, which specialises in superthin, traditional pizza, provided us with a great start to the trip. Our pizzas were fantastic, but the bufala ciabattas had, well, too much bufala. Maybe that was our fault...

Onwards, then, to the Pantheon! It was just an 8-minute walk away to the historic building, and Fatima's favourite building in the capital. From the outside it doesn't look particularly special – though it is imposing! – yet the inside is where the real magic comes to life. You're immediately struck by the huge dome, which spans 43 metres in diameter. Another incredibly cool part of the Pantheon is the oculus. The top of the dome lets in a sharp ray of sunlight and it moves as the day progresses, acting as a gigantic sundial. It's worth staying an hour or so just to see the process.

If you don't plan to take a guidebook with you, it's worth downloading some apps before you go. There's plenty of free Italian audioguides, and some that are fairly cheap. We found these useful for our trip. There are some organised by the government too. At the Pantheon, for instance, there's an app called Pantheon EN, which is free to download and gives you all the facts you need to know.

It was now time for coffee. Less than 100 metres away is Tazza d'oro, said to be one of Rome's best coffeehouses, and it really lived up to its name. It was incredibly cheap, especially considering its location in a tourist hotspot, and we left very happy.

From there we walked to the famous Spanish steps, near to Piazza di Spagna. It's a lively hub and there's plenty of familiar shops around the area, but that's not why you should go. The steps are a wonderful place to sit down for a while and people-watch, and once you climb the 135 steps, you get beautiful views of the city. Make sure you have your ice cream before you go on the steps though – guards don't let you eat any food on the steps!

For dinner, we had one of the best meals of our trip, at Maccheroni. I ordered the black truffle pasta, which was beautiful, and Fatima had the cheese-filled ravioli with zucchini. Definitely book a table or go before the dinnertime rush.

Day 2

After a busy first day, we started out fairly late before heading out to the Vatican at around 11. The walk took us around half an hour and we felt pretty smug as we walked past huge queues of people waiting to get in – here's a tip: buy your ticket online to the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel in advance! There are a few queues – one for tour groups and one for individuals. You'll see that the one for individuals moves a lot quicker as tour guides have to go and buy tickets for everyone in their group.

The Vatican Museums are an immense collection of art and history through the ages, and it's definitely worth exploring. We also grabbed some snacks – cereal bars, crisps and fruits – before we left to keep us going through the day, which worked out really well as the canteen was extraordinarily expensive.

We walked around to St. Peter's Square, where thousands congregate to hear from the Pope, before waiting in the queue for the Basilica. There's no real way to avoid this queue, so your best hope is that it doesn't rain. Entrance, by the way, is free but you have to pass security, which slows things down. We opted to pay the €6 entry fee to see the view from the dome, and it was a really good experience.

By this point we were pretty hungry and headed to Trastevere, which our hotel recommended as being a good place to go and eat. We found cute cafes and restaurants and settled on Dar Poeta, a highly recommended pizzeria. I went for a fairly straightforward rocket and tomato pizza with bufala mozzarella, while Fatima went for a cheesy pizza with aubergine – both were delicious.

We then found a quirky and cheap coffee shop – Caffe Sentimiano – around the corner to give us a little energy boost before walking to Trevi fountain to do some people watching in the moonlight.

Day 3

On Sunday we realised that we were incredibly – and accidentally – lucky, because it was the first Sunday of the month and so got free entry to all museums in Rome. If you haven't bought a ticket online, here's a tip: go and queue up to get a ticket from the Roman Forum and you can get entry for both at once – it's a much shorter line so you'll end up saving yourself time.

On first glance from the outside, the Colosseum is incredible. It's huge and and amazing to think of what the structure once was and the kinds of events were hosted there. Since we got in for free, we decided to get a guide. Unfortunately, it was cancelled and we were told we'd need to wait another 45 minutes so instead we decided to download an unofficial audio guide. It set us back £6 but we could use it all around Rome, and meant we could walk around various sites at our own pace. Unfortunately we weren't able to access the basement level as that's closed on Sundays even for tour groups.

After leaving the Colosseum, we walked around the side streets and ended up at La Cassetta, a cute little coffee shop, before having pizzas at Trieste, a small pizza chain that offers a series of mini pizzas (they weren't only good pizzas, but cheap too). We then went back towards the Roman Forum, a huge ground full of ruins and an old marketplace, which we strolled through for hours. The audio guide was useful here too!

After leaving the Forum, we had some delicious gelato at the Gelateria del Teatro on our walk back, and then got back to our hotel with some time to pray.

Then we went out and had one of our best meals in Rome at Osteria del Pesce. Walking past, you can see handmade pasta being made from outside and there's always a queue to get in. The menu is fully in Italian and we had to use Google Translate to figure out what we were getting to eat! Fatima had the gnocchi and I had cacio e pepe, a fancy version of mac and cheese.

After dinner, we had another chance to go back to Trevi fountain and just walk around in the warm evening.

Day 4

Truthfully, this day wasn't really necessary but it was a nice chance to meet up with a friend who moved to Rome and to discover less touristy parts of the city. We ventured around shops and also had mini pizzas near Campo di Fiori, which made us really feel like locals!