Rome blog for Bed & Breakfast Chaplin Hostel

It is probably better to turn the question around: When is not a good time for tourists to visit rome? Several travel guides, even big international guides like Lonely Planet, recommend against visiting rome in August. The reason? In August Rome would be too crowded and it would be too difficult to find comfortable, central and cheap accommodation. Lonely Planet and other travel guides that come up with this and similar bits of wisdom ought to be ashamed of themselves. In August Rome is usually so hot that tourists stay away and it is very easy to find cheap bed and breakfasts, hostels en hotels. The bed and breakfast Little Italy Rome en Hostel Chaplin are both about 30 percent cheaper than in spring and autumn.

Summer

There are of course reasons to leave Rome be in August, such as the aforementioned high temperatures, but also that it is the traditional holiday month for the Romans themselves and many restaurants and trattorias will be closed. Until about 15 years ago even museums would shut their doors, but luckily that has changed. On the contrary, under the banner “Roma Estate” several festivals, concerts and exhibitions are held in August for those that stay behind. One more advantage is that August is the only time of the year that you will be able to walk from the B&B to the Colosseum, to name an attraction, without having to fear to be run over by a crazy driver.

Winter

During the winter months, from the second week of November till the end of Febraury, hotel and bed and breakfast rates in Rome drop and you will be often able to get a B&B room at the price of a hostel. The weather will of course be less agreeable and fewer events are organized. On the upside, the lines at the Vatican Museums, the Colosseum and other major tourist attractions will be far shorter. The trip to Rome itself will also be a lot cheaper, especially if you book early enough on one of the budget airlines, like RyanAir or Easyjet .

Spring and autumn

As far as the weather goes,the best months to visit the Eternal City are the spring and autumn months, from March until June and from September until Oktober. The Romans are back from their holidays, the tourists come to Rome en masse, and the buses and metros are packed with people. The queues for getting into tourist attractions like the vatican Museums and the Colosseum can take 2 or 3 hours. Staying in Rome is not cheap (At the moment, as far as accommodation is concerned, Rome is the 7th most expensive city in the world, and the average price of a hotel room is slightly more than 150 Euros per night). Bed & Breakfast Chaplin Rome and Hostel Little Italy are of course way cheaper than that.

The nearest beach in Rome, and thus also the one that is most crowded, is the one at Ostia. Especially in July and August it tends to be dirty and packed with people – the Romans who do not go away on a holiday all spend there days there. On top of that the beaches, as in most of Italy, are all private and you have to pay a lot of money just to be allowed to sit somewhere and then more if you want an umbrella, beach chairs, etc.

The advantage Ostia has over other beaches near Rome is that it is easy to reach by public transport. You take the underground (metropolitana) line B to one of the following three stops: Piramide, Basilica San Paolo or EUR Magliana. There you change onto the Ostia Lido train and stay on till the last stop. It will take you more or less one hour from Rome Termini and if you want to avoid the biggest crowds and most expensive beaches you then take another bus to get you to the public beaches. The trip is also cheap: from Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel Rome it will only cost you one Euro to get there and one Euro again to come back to the city.

Pleasure can also be combined with culture: on the way to Ostia you could decide to stop off at Ostia Antica and see the ruins of the ancient Roman harbor.

Other beaches near Rome that are worth visiting are Fregene and especially, though a good bit further away, Sperlonga, a beautiful town with white beaches and an immaculate, white city centre that, with its steps going off in all directions, gives the impression to have been designed by Escher. (From the Hostel Chaplin Bed & Breakfast and Rome Termini you take a train to Fondi-Sperlonga and then a bus to Sperlonga itself. Note that on Sudays there is a very limited bus schedule and when we went there, taking an afternoon off from the B&B duties we had to take a ride from a rogue taxi driver, who allowed himself to be talked down to 15 Euros.)

Some public holidays take of course place on the same day as in the rest of Europe (Xmas, New Year’s, Easter), but there are some holidays that exist only in Italy (April 25th, June 2nd) during which the entire country comes to a standstill. There are some holidays that also exist in other European countries, but are more important in Italy than in those other countries (August 15th, November 1st), or the other way around (Pentecost is not really celebrated in Italy). There is even one purely local holiday: Saint Peter and Paul, honoring the patron saints of Rome, is only celebrated in the capitol of Italy. In case you need accommodation in Rome in a period that ncludes a holiday, you would do well in trying to reserve a room as early as possible. Especially during the Easter, May 1st and New Year’s periods, Rome’s hotels, bed and breakfasts and hostels tend to be fully booked months in advance. And the rooms that are left tend not to be too cheap. (Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome and its sister hostel Little Italy B&B remain affordable, of course, though, like all other hotels, we also slightly raise our prices.)

The most important holidays in Rome and Italy are: