Life in rome

We learned a lot about life in Rome during our two-week visit. This is a compilation of our learning for future travelers. Please ignore the redundancy in pictures with other section, as this is a compilation of all areas in these topics.

neighborhoods & transportation

food

shopping

neighborhoods & transportation

Major trains go to Rome Termini station, but there are several stations around Rome, and a simple search on trenitalia.com or italiarail.com will get you the best route to your destination station.

We picked a nice hotel apartment complex near Vatican City. We enjoyed breakfast on rooftop terrace.

Look up at the bus stop sign to confirm the stops and make sure you're going in the right direction.

Rome was rainy when we visited in early November. Standing in the rain at the bus stop is no fun, so download the taxi app (there's a link through MoovIt) in case it rains hard.

Some buses are pretty empty, others are jam packed.

Rome is a great city to walk around, and you can find pleasant surprises while walking. We enjoyed walking around, and only took metros/buses to come into or leave city center.

Parking is tough and traffic is crazy in city center, don't plan to rent a car in Rome unless you're a pro and don't mind searching for parking.

The metro works well, but the routes are few and far in between.

Neighborhood: Most of the major attractions are on the east side of Tiber River, with the exception of Vatican City. The metro in Rome does not cover the entire city, so if staying outside of city center, try to stay close to a metro station. We stayed close to Vatican City but was not close to the metro, and relying on the bus system was problematic at times. If we were to do our trip again, we’d stay on the east side of Tiber River.

Transportation: The combination of train, metro, buses and trams make up the transportation network in Rome. The main train station in Rome is the Rome Termini station on the east side. There is one general ticket for all city travels, it’s 1.50 euros per ticket and is good for unlimited in-town travel for 100 minutes. It’s good for local trains, metros, buses and trams. Some buses show up very infrequently, be careful about this when choosing bus routes. Stay away from buses that come once every 35-45 minutes unless you have too much time to kill.

Transportation app: MoovIt is fantastic! It not only calculates the best app, but also shows you the bus schedule when available. It also shows you the direction on the phone when trying to figure out which direction to head towards.

food

These stuff olives were tasty! Meat inside, breaded and fried on the outside.

Found a nice boba shop next to the Pantheon, highly recommended!

We ordered this massive sheet of family size pizza. Freshly baked, it tasted so good, and was a steal at 13 euros.

Typical Rome style pizza, cut into rectangular slices and charged by weight. Can be eaten open faced or folded up.

Tiramisu shop selling nothing but tiramisu, and a long line of people line up to buy it. It was really good, very creamy. Too rich to eat the entire piece though, it's best shared.

Needing a break from all the Italian food, we found a sushi ingredient store and decided to make sushi rolls for the first time ever!

The rolls may not have looked pretty, but man, they tasted so good!

Pasta carbonara, a unique sauce combination of eggs, cured pork cheek and olive oil.

Anchovies on pizzas are pretty salty.

The Central Market (Mercato Centrale Roma), accessible from Roma Termini station, is a foodie's heaven. The guy at the ramen shop is super friendly, but it's far from authentic, I'm afraid.

The Flea Imperial Red Ale was amazing! Strong yet smooth, it's almost like a blend of beer and red wine. So good!

Pizza and Pasta are stable Italian food, of course. Sandwich shops are around every corner also. We grew to love the Rome style of pizza, where they bake huge long sheets of pizza, and cut individual pieces to charge by weight. The thin crust pizzas are then folded up when eaten, almost like a calzone. The fresh ones are delicious!

After five weeks in Italy, we were craving for Asian food. It was surprisingly difficult to find Asian restaurants near our neighborhood west of Tiber River. We finally found one tiny shop selling sushi ingredients and other Asian food choices like tonkasu ramen and gyoza, and we almost bought the entire shop.

shopping

Campo de Fiori outdoor market. Lots of spices, flowers and olive oils.

You can even find hats at Campo de Fiori.

Fancy shopping near Spanish Steps.

Outside Centro Commerciale AURA, where we found a hypermarket named Pam. Very good selection.

Shopping is big in Rome. For local market flair, go to open markets like Campo de Fiori. For high end shopping, head to the Spanish Steps. Small supermarkets can be found throughout the city, but if you want decent selection, you have to go outside of city center and look for a hypermarket. We visited a Pam store at Centro Commerciale AURA, which had a wide selection of products. It was also the only store we found selling plain notebooks, which we desparately needed for home schooling. The only notebooks we found in Florence were fancy ones at arts store for 13-16 euros.