Rome and Vatican City

Ah Rome — the Eternal City!

Rome is one of those weird cities for me — I knew it existed, I knew the major landmarks but I really had no idea what to expect. New York, Paris, London, Venice — all of these cities are constantly in movies and so, when you visit, you feel like you’ve been before. Rome was… not like that, at all.

That’s not to say that Rome isn’t beautiful — the countryside surrounding the city can be jaw-dropping — and the city is so old that it’s hard to not find beauty everywhere you look.

I stayed in Rome for 9 amazing days courtesy of Hostelz.com. Hostelz.com is a relatively new hostel booking website that searches the web and allows you to see what all the other hostel booking websites are charging, so that you can get the cheapest price without manually searching a bunch of different sites. In addition, Hostelz.com has user-reviews that you won’t find elsewhere, as well as user-uploaded photos — both of which help you to make a more informed decision when choosing a hostel.

Here are some helpful facts about Rome:

The metro only has two lines. This will infuriate you if you’re tired and just want to go home
You need a map. No exceptions
Overall, the city is very walkable and, depending on how you manage your time and energy, get around without the metro
The drivers are crazy and you will be nearly run over a few times at least
Rome’s economy is tourism based which means there are many different accommodation types, tours, vendors and English-speaking people around
Southern Italy is notorious for pick-pockets, so be careful!