Rome in five days

💡Around mid-August half the city shuts

15 August is Ferragosto, and many neighbourhood restaurants and shops close for one or two weeks around it. The monuments stay open and crowded, but the Rome the Romans use — the old trattorias, the local shops — disappears for exactly those days.

💡The Vatican is two separate visits, not one

The Vatican Museums with the Sistine Chapel are paid and booked by time slot. St Peter's Basilica is free and has its own separate queue out in the square. Plenty of people buy a ticket assuming it covers the basilica, or queue for the basilica expecting to reach the Sistine Chapel. Two entrances, two lines.

💡The metro doesn't reach the historic centre

Rome has three lines and none of them passes the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona or the Pantheon: there is so much archaeology underneath that they cannot dig. The centre is walked or crossed by bus, and counting on the metro to get around it is the most common miscalculation.

💡The Borghese Gallery works in two-hour slots

You cannot just turn up: you book in advance, enter at a set time, and after two hours everyone leaves so the next group can come in. It's one of the loveliest museums in the city and one of the first to sell out, so buy it the day you fix your dates.

💡Airport taxis into the centre have a flat fare

Fiumicino has a single city-set price to anywhere inside the Aurelian Walls, luggage included and no meter. Confirm it before you get in, and only use the white taxis at the official rank: whoever approaches you inside the terminal is not bound by it.

💡Have dinner across the river

On the streets around the Colosseum and the Trevi you will pay double for worse food, and plenty of places charge a cover without saying so clearly. In Trastevere or Testaccio you eat properly. And coffee is drunk standing at the bar: sitting on the terrace can triple the price, and it is legal.

💡The water from the street fountains is for drinking

There are around two thousand little iron fountains across the city, the "nasoni", and the water is drinkable and cold. Cover the spout with a finger and a jet comes up to drink from. In Rome's heat, carrying a bottle and refilling saves you several euros a day.

💡Churches require covered shoulders and knees

This isn't a suggestion: at St Peter's and plenty of other churches there is a check at the door and people in vest tops or shorts are turned away. In July heat it's easy to forget and lose a morning going back to the hotel. A large scarf in your bag solves it.

💡If Pompeii is too far, there is Ostia Antica

It was imperial Rome's port, with streets, baths and a theatre still standing, and it's a little over half an hour on the suburban train from Piramide on a normal city ticket. Nowhere near as famous as Pompeii, which is exactly why you walk it almost alone.

💡In Rome almost everything is booked with a time slot

The Colosseum, the Vatican and now the Pantheon too all run on time slots and sell out days ahead. It is not a case of turning up and going in: without a booking you stay outside or pay triple to a tout at the door. Buy on the official sites as soon as you have dates.