Historic centre of Rome – day one

Weekend in Rome

Another title of this blog post might be ‘Back to Rome’ as we were there quite a few years ago. However, the last time we only spent part of our trip in Rome and enjoyed some time traveling outside the city. We also visited Grotte di Frasassi and Vesuvius volcano.

This time, it was a trip with an aim to spend the whole weekend in Rome – we wanted to walk around the historic centre of the city and enjoy Roman food.

We arrived at Termini station just before midday and the first thing to do was to have a late breakfast. There is another blog about our gastronomical experiences during this weekend. Eating was very important part of our trip and added significant value to our trip.

Baths of Diocletian

Just after the meal, we went to the Baths of Diocletian (Termas de Diocleciano) museum, which is a part of the larger Museo Nacional Romano.

The Baths of Diocletian are a huge complex and were constructed three hundred years AD, they are located just in front of Rome Termini station.

The entrance cost for this museum was really good – only 10 Euro per adult visitor (we booked tickets online, only credit cards were accepted for booking).

I have to mention that this trip was during COVID-19 pandemic in October 2021, so we had to show our green certificates (COVID passes) to be allowed to enter and beforehand they measured our body temperature.

Both inside and outside of the museum many ancient artefacts were witnessing the power and success of the Roman civilisation. However, all the buildings and gardens of the complex are what I enjoyed the most.

We were there about an hour or a bit more and decided to move on.

Fountain of the Naiads

In the west part of the Baths of the Diocletian complex is located in Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri church. We saw it from the inside of the complex, however it looks much better from the street. The architects of this church were Michelangelo and Luigi Vanvitelli.

And there is another amazing site in front of the church – the Fountain of the Naiads.

Whole square around the fountain looks amazing – you can see this from the picture above. This definitely made our weekend in Rome enjoyable straight from the beginning of the visit.

Monti Palace Hotel

From the fountain, we went to Monti Palace Hotel where we had booked a room for the stay during our weekend trip to Rome. Just have to say that the hotel really deserves its four stars. Room, breakfast, reception service – everything was top-level. We were surprised about the walls of the building – the room was very quiet, and almost no sounds from the street came into the room, perhaps, because all the walls from inside were covered with some special fabric.

Another feature of the hotel is its roof terrace, they call it Tiziano Terrace, which is located on the top floor of the building and offers 180-degree views of the Monti district. You should book a table to be able to see the sunset from the terrace. The sunset views are gorgeous from there.

One tip – do not plan a dinner on the terrace, just order a drink (some snacks are complementary). Breakfast is served on the terrace in the morning and is very good but for some reason, food in the evening does not stand out at all.

Evening walk

After sunset, we went out for a late-night walk. The city was very busy even after 10pm when we returned from our walk.

We walked along Via dei Fori Imperiali and enjoyed night views of the city, its fantastic squares and buildings – Piazza Venezia, Fontana dell’Adriatico, Fountain of the Tyrrhenian, Campidoglio and many other fascinating places on our way back to the hotel.