ROME
Italy (Roma)
If you only have one day to spend in Rome, the Day Two itinerary is recommended.
Day One
📅 Get an early morning entry to the Vatican (5 hrs)
This may require getting the ‘breakfast entry’. The breakfast is garbage but if this ticket is necessary in order to secure an entry time (better yet an early entry time) then it is well worth it.
Unless you are planning your trip more than three months in advance, getting tickets to the Vatican is hard. You do not want to join the hours-long line of tourists standing in the sun waiting for tickets day-of.
Getting tickets to join a group in a language you do not speak can be a great way to get in on a day that is otherwise sold out.
Lunch at Be.Re. + Trapizzino ($)
Get the Chicken Cacciatore and Doppio Panna e Alici. Excellent sour beer menu.
Gelato at Old Bridge
Tour St Peter’s Basilica
The really long line after the security check is only for the tower (cool but skippable)
Visit Welcome To Rome (1 hr)
Wine at Vinaietto
Dine at Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina ($) or Seu Pizza Illuminati ($)
Day Two
Grab a cafe cremoso
📅 Tour Villa Borghese (3-4 hrs)
Descend the Spanish Steps
Lunch at Piccolo Buco ($)
Order the Yellow Spice Salami
Arrive just before they open for lunch for best odds at avoiding a line entirely
If there is a line, take turns waiting in line and souvenir shopping
Throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain
our the Roman Forum (2-3 hrs)
If you didn’t go to Piccolo Buco, grab a porchetta sandwich at Fuorinorma or 🤥 Mizio’s, or pasta at 🤥 al42 ($)
📅 Tour the Colosseum (3 hrs)
To see the upper and lower-most accessible levels, be sure to book the appropriate tour far in advance.
As with the Vatican, this may require booking a tour in a language you don’t speak.
📅 🤥 Dine at Armando al Pantheon ($)
Gelato at Frigidarium
This small but unparalleled art museum houses a handful of the greatest sculptures ever chiseled and features more of Caravaggio’s works than any other museum in the world.
Don’t miss Villa Borghese
You could easily spend half an hour in the map gallery and a full hour in the Sistine Chapel.
Not joining a guided tour will give you the flexibility to see the parts of the museum you care about and to take your time if desired.
The audio guide is excellent, but not all parts of the guide are obvious from the displays. Some guess work with the numbers should reward you with extra content.
Pick your battles in the Vatican
You can mostly trust 50 Top Pizza. I have no trouble believing that I Masanielli di Francesco Martucci makes the absolute best pizza in the world. It is worth a trip to Caserta just to try it. Top 50’s #4, 50 Kalo, in Naples, is great - but, respectfully, you can find better pizza here in San Francisco. Seu Pizza Illuminati, 50 Top’s #3, is in Rome, and their pizza is indeed better than any I’ve had in America, and stands out as amazing even among Italy’s most storied pizzerias. But better still is Piccolo Buco, which is just absurdly good and I suspect is the best meal you can have in Rome.
Pictured here is Piccolo Buco’s signature pie, the Yellow Spice Salami. Pity the tables that don’t have one of these. It has a yellow tomato sauce base, topped with mozzarella, spicy salami, dollops of mint ricotta, basil, and olive oil.
Piccolo Buco are masters at pizza napoletana contemporanea. It is also known as “canotto” style pizza for its distinctive inflated crust (‘canotto’ means life raft). As you can see from this photo, this crust is impossibly light and airier than a beignet. And the pizza is not even blistered on the bottom.
No reservations - Piccolo Buco ($) will not break your budget, but can easily break your itinerary if you do not plan for a long (0-2 hr) wait during peak hours/season.
