Rome Guidebook

In Rick Steves Rome you'll find in-depth Rick-tested information on:

• Practicalities
  • Easy-to-follow maps (including color maps of East Rome, West Rome, South Rome, and Italy)
  • ​Trip planning: When to go, pre-trip checklist, festivals and holidays, recommended books and movies
  • Getting around Rome by metro, bus, tram, and taxi
  • Advice on planning your time and avoiding lines
  • Transportation in Italy: Trains and buses
  • Detailed advice on managing money, communicating, reserving rooms, handling emergencies, and other helpful hints
• Recommended sights and activities
• Recommended hotels and restaurants
• Self-guided walks
  • Heart of Rome
  • Jewish Ghetto
  • Trastevere neighborhood
• Self-guided tours of ancient sites
  • Colosseum
  • Roman Forum
  • Palatine Hill
  • Pantheon
  • Ancient Appian Way
• Self-guided church tours
  • St. Peter's Basilica
  • St. Peter-in-Chains
  • Pilgrim's Rome
• Self-guided museum tours
  • Vatican Museums
  • Borghese Gallery
  • Capitoline Museums
  • National Museum of Rome
• Day trips
  • Ostia Antica
  • Tivoli
  • Naples and Pompeii
• And more
  • Roman history, culture, and cuisine
  • Rome with children
  • Rome's shopping and nightlife
  • Handy Italian survival phrases

Also included: a 10½" x 19½" full-color foldout map, including a transit overview and close-ups on key sights.

Should I get this Rome book in addition to either Rick's complete Italy guidebook or his Best of Italy guidebook?

Probably not. If you're only spending a few days in Rome, as part of a longer trip in Italy, the Rome chapter of either Italy guidebook is all you're likely to need.

If, however, you're spending four days or more in Rome, the extra information in Rick Steves Rome can be worthwhile. It offers more in-depth sightseeing information, several additional self-guided city walks and museum/sight tours, and more specifics on shopping and nightlife, plus suggestions for kids. Other information is generally the same, especially compared to the complete Rick Steves Italy guidebook, which includes nearly all the hotels, restaurants, and nitty-gritty practical advice for Rome and its day trips that you'll find in the city book. (But compared to Rick Steves Best of Italy, the Rome guidebook does have a few more hotel and restaurant listings, as well as more comprehensive coverage of day-trip options.)

What's the difference between this Rome guidebook and Rick's Pocket Rome guide?

Rick Steves Pocket Rome works best for people taking a short trip, or perhaps a return trip, to Rome. Like our other Pocket guides, Pocket Rome is smaller than the complete guidebook and in full color (but still offers our best sightseeing advice and a handful of self-guided city walks and museum tours, plus a foldout map).

For travelers who want to delve deep into Rome, the full-size guidebook is a better option. It offers more substantial (and more frequently updated) advice on every front: practicalities, sightseeing, self-guided tours, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, shopping, kids' activities, and the city's history and culture, plus chapters on the best day trips.

Latest updates: When we learn of critical changes to the information in our guidebooks on Italy, we post them. (Of course, it's still smart to reconfirm critical transportation and sightseeing details locally.) Armed with a Rick Steves guidebook and these late-breaking updates, you're set for a great trip!

Submit feedback: Once you've used this book in Europe, we'd love to hear your feedback — good or bad — about our advice on sights, hotels, restaurants, and travel tips. We're also interested in any tips or discoveries you made while in Europe. Your comments help us improve our guidebooks for future travelers.