3-4 Days in Rome: What to See, Eat & Spend

Rome is the city I’m sure a lot of us have thought of visiting one day. One of those people was me, and I’m glad to say I just came back home from this beautiful trip, and I want to share all the tips, recommendations and information I have gathered with you. Hopefully, some of this could be useful to you, and your trip to Rome will be amazing!

This post is for those who don’t have the biggest budget for travelling but still want to see the world, and in particular, Rome. I travel on a budget, meaning no 5-star hotels or expensive tickets, so if you are like me and simply want to enjoy the city without saving up for it for half your life, please, welcome in.

My trip to Rome was for 5 days or 4 nights, January 18th - January 22nd. January is off-season, which isn’t a popular choice, but I will tell you why I believe it is a great choice.

I will break down the costs of the trip, share my day-by-day itinerary, speak about the hotel experience, share my recommendations and tips for the Rome travel, so your trip can be smooth.

I am not an expert; the things I’m sharing come from my own personal experience, so if your experience was different or you prefer to do things another way, the choice is yours! My mission is to make sure you don’t repeat my mistakes and have a source of information, in case you need it. With that, let's begin!

QUICK BUDGET OVERVIEW

I have gone against my own rules this trip (I honestly don’t know why I did that; maybe it was a full moon or something). I booked flights on a whim in the middle of December. I had an impulse to travel somewhere during my time off from work, and I went on my favourite app - Skyscanner and found flights. They were booked less than 10 minutes later, which is probably why they aren’t the most budget-friendly, but what was done was done.

I flew with Ryanair, added priority and also chose my seats since I didn’t go alone, I wanted to sit together with my travel companion.

To make it easier, I will break down the ticket costs for 1 person, so you can easily multiply them by however many people you want to take on the trip.

Riga to Rome (Fiumicino):

Basic Fare: 39.22 EUR

Priority & 2 Cabin Bags: 16.50 EUR

Reserved Seat: 5.50 EUR

Total: 61.22 EUR

If I chose to travel with just a backpack and without choosing my own seat, I could’ve paid just 39.22 EUR for a ticket there, which, in my opinion, is pretty affordable.

Rome (Fiumicino) to Riga:

Basic Fare: 21.99 EUR

Priority & 2 Cabin Bags: 16 EUR

Reserved Seat: 8 EUR

Total: 45.99 EUR

Total for 2 flights: 107.21 EUR

Without adding priority and choosing a seat, I’d pay: 61.21 EUR

I went against my own rules for the booking of the hotel, since I have previously written about not using hotel booking platforms specifically for hotel bookings, but rather scrolling through them like a search engine. This time, I guess something affected me, and I did book a hotel through Agoda.

I’ve stayed at the Adesso Hotel in Rome, which is a 4-star hotel with plenty of services and a great location. Since it’s off-season, for 5 days/4 nights in a classic twin room with 2 single beds, I’ve paid 287 EUR through the Agoda platform. The price didn’t include breakfast, but it was a semi-flex option, since I didn’t need to pay immediately at the moment of booking, instead paying 7 days before arrival, which also makes the price go up.

While browsing tickets and creating my own itinerary, I stumbled upon the Roma Pass, and after looking through its benefits, I decided to give it a go. The Roma Pass includes a public transportation pass for 48 or 72 hours, and free entrance to 1 attraction (for 48h pass) or 2 attractions (72h pass).

I’ve bought a 72H Roma Pass for 62.90 EUR. Which allowed me to spend 0 EUR on public transportation in the city and 0 EUR on tickets to the Colosseum and Borghese Gallery.

I will be going more in-depth about the pros and cons of that pass in another post, but do I recommend it? No. I do not.

I also booked tickets for the Vatican Museums, and since I am still a student and an “Under 25 years old EU citizen”, I booked a reduced ticket, which cost me 10 EUR + 5 EUR reservation fees, and since I’m a curious soul, I also added a Pizza Menu option for 11 EUR.

So, in total, my Vatican Museums ticket cost me 26 EUR.

Another attraction I booked was the City Sightseeing bus, but since I was not interested in hopping on and off the entire day, I booked just 1 loop for 12.75 EUR.

In total, the attractions + public transport cost me: 62.90 + 26 + 12.75 = 101.65 EUR

Did I spend too much? Was half of it not worth it? Yes and yes, but we will get into that later.

For food, I don’t have a specific amount that I have spent during this trip, but I can name a few:

To eat at a pizza restaurant for 2 people, which included 2 pizzas and 3 drinks, right by the Colosseum, it was 39.50 EUR.

Other times, we have visited supermarkets, and surprisingly, the prices are lower than in Latvia. It was easy to compare by going to a Lidl near our hotel and buying products to last us several days. I’ve never had such small totals here in Latvia.

So an approximate total for the most important things that I have spent on comes out to:

Flights: 107.21 EUR

Hotel for 2: 287 EUR

Attractions + Public transport: 101.65 EUR

Food: +/- 100 EUR

Transfer to and from the airport: 14 EUR (7 EUR there, 7 EUR back)

Total: 609.86 EUR

How to make that amount smaller, and which things not to waste your money on, we will get into later.

DAY-BY-DAY ITINERARY

I have landed in Rome at around 23:00 on the 18th of January, so I wouldn’t count it as day 1, more so day 0.

DAY 0:

I took the SIT Shuttle Bus from the airport to the city centre, and since I was too tired to try and figure out their public transport system, I took an Uber to the hotel. Let’s just say they don’t have trouble with taxis at all, just the prices of those. The taxi you can flag down in any crowded public space has a fixed rate of 55 EUR to get you to the airport. An Uber from the airport to the city costs around 75-90 EUR. Buses for the win.

DAY 1:

We got breakfast at one of the cafes by the Colosseum, two drinks and two pastries came out to a total of 11 EUR. The first day was for the main star of the city - the Colosseum. The general ticket that you get with the Roma Pass gives you access to the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. You get to walk through the Colosseum, visit both of its floors and then explore the forum and go up the Palatine Hill. The whole visit in total took us about 3 hours of walking and exploring. You could pack some food with you to have a bite sitting on one of the benches of the Palatine Hill and enjoy the view.

After that, we visited a pizza restaurant I mentioned in the budget overview, tasted the best pizza in the city and moved on to our next step - the City Sightseeing bus. On their website, it mentioned that one loop is 1.5H, but in the end, it took around 2.5H from start to finish. Was it worth it? Personally, for me, no.

After that, we visited a store by the hotel and enjoyed our evening in.

DAY 2:

The second day, we got to sleep in a little bit and then visited the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. My main advice is not book this with anything else on the same day. The museums are ginormous, there is no other word for that size. By the end, you will be tired, and it will most likely be evening, so any other reservations simply don’t fit in.

Since we also ordered the Pizza Menu beforehand, we got to have lunch in the Museum’s pizzeria. Do I recommend it? No. It’s better to choose what you want instead of what they will serve you, and the number of various food places there gives you an even bigger choice than simply a slice of pizza, fries and a bottle of water.

After that, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica, the most beautiful building, in my opinion, inside and outside. The visit didn’t take long, but it was absolutely worth it.

We ended our evening in Hard Rock Cafe, enjoying the atmosphere and great food.

DAY 3:

This day started with a visit to the Borghese Gallery, then a stroll through the park surrounding it. The territory is big, and green parrots will chirp above you as you walk among the trees. The Gallery itself isn’t big; the whole visit took us an hour, but it hosts some of the most beautiful art pieces.

After drinking coffee in the outside cafe in the park, we headed to the Spanish Steps and later headed over to the Trevi fountain and then the Pantheon. This walk through the city allowed us to enjoy the streets of Rome and see the sights we wanted, while enjoying the atmosphere of the city.

Later, we visited the famous McDonald's not far away from the steps. It was built in 1986, and some services, it seems, have not been upgraded since then.

We walked around the city some more, visiting several supermarkets on the way back to the hotel and then ended our night.

DAY 4:

This was the last day in Rome and in Italy, so we decided not to dwell in Rome and, after check out, headed over to Fiumicino. Not the airport, but the city that stands next to it. We went over to the beach and officially touched the water of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Walked along the water, explored the small streets and then had a great lunch in Old Wild West, before heading back to the airport and heading home.

This itinerary wasn’t perfect; there were bumps and hiccups along the road, but it allowed me to achieve what I wanted during that trip. I visited all the sights I wanted to see, I ate tasty food, and I had time to explore and do what I wanted. It allowed me to get introduced to Italian culture, people and the atmosphere of the country. Did I love it? Absolutely.

HOTEL EXPERIENCE

Since it’s the offseason, all hotels have much lower prices, which allowed us to stay in a 4-star hotel by the Tiburtina station. Would I recommend the Adesso Hotel we stayed at? Yes and no, let’s get into it.

Location: It wasn’t super in the middle of the city, but since we had public transportation cards, we had no problem with that. A 2-minute walk to a metro station and a 4-stop ride to the centre, sounds great to me. On the other hand, the road is quite loud, there are always people, and something is always happening. Since we walked almost 20k steps every day, we were tired enough to fall asleep even with the noise outside, so it wasn’t really a problem. It might be a problem for someone who has trouble falling asleep.

The Room: The room was great, a lot of places of storage, a big, spacious bathroom and very comfortable beds. We had a kettle, a coffee machine and all the other necessities. From the cons - the smell. No, it wasn’t bad, it was a strong, overwhelming scent of either cleaning supplies, laundry detergent or simply their signature hotel scent. We had to keep the window open while being in the room simply because the smell was so strong. You could also hear what your neighbours were doing, not as bad as in some other hotels, but still quite well.

Staff: The staff was welcoming and helpful. We didn’t have any trouble, so we didn’t interact much apart from check-in and check-out, but both of those experiences were nice and positive. The room was clean, and our coffee and complimentary water bottles kept getting restocked.

Overall, it wasn’t bad. I’d say it was a good hotel stay, especially for such a price. Would I want to stay there again? I’d probably explore other options first, and if I didn’t find a better deal, I’d stay there again.

RECOMMENDATIONS

These are some of my recommendations based on my own experience during this trip. I will go into more details and share more information in a separate blog post, but here are the most important ones:

1. Don’t waste your money on a taxi, it’s heavily overpriced.

2. Roma Pass wasn’t worth the money.

3. Buy a separate transport pass for the days of your stay.

4. Be able to say no, or you will get sucked into a place you weren’t intending to go to.

5. Don’t spend money in Fiumicino airport duty-free, it’s so expensive.

6. Cheap souvenirs are all around the city; keep your eyes peeled.

7. Book everything in advance.

8. Have your ID on you at all times.

9. Be aware of pickpockets and keep your things in inner pockets if you can.

10. Always plan more time for getting somewhere than is needed; public transport probably has a time schedule, but doesn’t follow it.

11. To save money, buy food in supermarkets.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, I am in love with Rome and with Italy; I am definitely coming back. Was it worth coming here in January? Yes, absolutely. The tourist places were less crowded, but even then, there were quite a lot of people, so I can’t even imagine what is happening there during the summer months.

The food was great, the culture, the art, the atmosphere, the weather. I loved it all. I will be writing more about this trip to provide more details on certain topics and share more of my experience. I do not regret buying tickets there on a whim and following through with it. It was a great experience and even with some bumps on the road, I would do it all again.

Follow along for more, save the information for your trips and ask any questions you might have! I am always open to discussing and sharing more.

I’m also posting pictures on my Instagram @liesetravels and posting videos on my TikTok @liesetravels.

Until next time.

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