Rome blog for Bed & Breakfast Chaplin Hostel

This Rome information blog is written for the guests of the Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome and the Hostel Little Italy B&B.

If the Chaplin B&B and Hostel Little Italy are not what you are looking for or you prefer a hotel in Rome rather than a bed and breakfast we recommend the Venere website for affordable and luxury accommodation in Rome. You specify your budget and the area you would like to stay in and you will get is a list of available properties in Rome with descriptions and guest reviews. On-line booking.

The Roma Pass is a combined museum and public transport pass that can make it easier and cheaper to visit Rome.

What does the Roma Pass include?

For 3 days, starting from the moment it is used:
- free access to the first two museums or monuments visited (the Vatican Museums are not included; the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum together count as one visit only)
- a reduction on the museums and other Rome tourist attractions visited afterwards
- reductions on visits to special exhibitions and happenings
- (rarely) visits to parts of museums that are otherwise closed
- free public transport (subway, bus and tram).

When is the Roma Pass useful?

Note that the Roma Pass can be less useful than it would seem to be. Most of Rome’s principal tourist sites are churches and squares and as such have no entrance fee anyway and the Vatican Museums are not included. Distances between tourist attractions are often so short that it makes more sense to walk than to wait for a bus or to look for the underground.

Jumping the Queue at the Colosseum

One big advantage the Roma Pass has is that it allows you to skip the ticket lines at the first two attractions visited, which can save a lot of time especially at the Colosseum. (If you want to get into the Colosseum without queueing and you do not have the Roma Pass it is best to get your ticket, which is a combined pass for the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine) at the Palatine Hill.

This Rome information blog is written for the guests of the Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Roma and the Hostel Little Italy B&B.

Where can the Roma Pass be bought?

The Roma Pass is for sale at all the museums and tourist sites that are included. It can (in theory, at least) also be bought at the Information Points that can be found close to the main attractions and at Rome Termini Station and the airport of Fiumicino. Travel agencies, tobacco shops, newspaper stands and Atac ticket offices are also supposed to sell them, but in reality they hardly ever do.

How to use the Roma Pass

Before visiting the first tourist attraction, write your full name and the activation date on the back of the pass. From this point you have free access to the first two museums or monuments selected. From the third visit onwards you have to show the Roma Pass at the entrance in order to get the reduction. (It is mandatory to also have a means of identification with you.)
Also for the public transport pass you will have to write first name, family name and date of birth on the back of the pass and then validate it the first time you use it. (Note that you are supposed to activate the public transport and the museum pass on the same day)

Roma Pass Kit

The so-called Roma Pass Kit, with information (in English and Italian) about the pass consists of:

- Roma Pass Transport, a pass allowing 3 days of free public transport in Rome (ATAC buses and trams, lmetro lines A and B, Met.Ro trains: Rome - Lido, Roma - Viterbo). The transport pass has to be validated the first time you use it and expires at midnight of the third day.
- Roma MAP, a map of Rome, indicating all the tourist information points, subway stops and museums and monuments included. The adresses, opeing hours, phone numbers and nearest bus and metro stops to the attractions are also indicated.
- Roma Pass Guide, a complete list of the museums and monuments the Roma Pass is valid for.
- Roma News, a news magazine listing special happenings and exhibitions.

8 Porta Portese Tips

This Rome information blog about the Porta Portese fleamarket in Trastevere is written for the guests of the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome and the Bed and Breakfast Little Italy.

The Porta Portese flea market: Big crowds in small spaces, pickpockets, gypsies, aggressive stallholders, chaos… Here follow some tips on how to best visit Rome’s liveliest Sunday morning spot.

1. Get up early and avoid the biggest tourist crowds.

2. Bargain! The word “tourist” is written in large letters on your forehead so the price of things doubles as soon as the stallholder lays his eye on you. Getting something for less than half of the original asking price is not exceptional in Porta Portese.

3. Before starting to bargain, try to figure out for yourself how much you would be willing to pay for an object. Unless you are an expert, you will not know its real anyway, so just, so begin by using your own common sense.

4. Speak English. Being friendly and using your humble and respectful mouthful of Italian just puts you at a disadvantage and increases your chances of being humbly and respectfully taken for a ride.

5. Be extremely careful for pickpockets, especially after 10am, the peak time of the Porta Portese flea market. Like most streets in the ancient part of Rome, the ones in Trastevere are extremely narrow and you will be forced to shuffle rather than walk through the crowds: a paradise for pickpockets and gypsies.

6. Do not keep your wallets in your back pockets, keep your backpack and phot camera in front of you where you can see them, and hide your valuable possessions underneath your clothes, or leave them in the room of your hotel, hostel or bed and breakfast.

7. Obvious, but still: nothing, really nothing offerd for sale at the Porta Portese flea market dates from ancient Roman times.

8. Buying a fake Louis Voutton-bag or Rayban-sunglasses can get you fined. This is rare, but when it happens, play the dumb and humble tourist game.

9. Do not be afraid, be careful, otherwise you might forget to enjoy the market and Porta Portese is well worth it.

This Rome information blog is written for the guests of the Hostel Chaplin Bed & Breakfast.

Roma Archeologia Card

The so-called Roma Archeologia Card costs 20 Euros, is valid for 7 days and gives free access to several of Rome’s major tourist attractions: the various locations the Museo Nazionale Romano is housed in, the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Baths of Caracalla, the Tomb of Cecilia Metella and the Villa Quintilli.

The Archeologia Card can be obtained at the ticket offices of the museums and monuments mentioned (except for the Tomb of Cecilia Metella and the Villa Quintili), as well as at the Visitor Center of the Apt (Tourist Information) in Rome. The address is Via Parigi 5 and from the Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel Rome it can be reached by walking from the rrailway station Roma Termini towards the Piazza della Repubblica. The second side street on the right past the Piazza is Via Parigi.

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.

Guests at the Hostel Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome ask me sometimes if there are any churches in Rome providing religious services in English. Here follows a list:

Italians do not believe in subtitles. Turn on the television in your hotel room and you will find that every program, from the stupidest show made for tv, to items on the news where people get interviewed in English, to art movies is dubbed into Italian. This can be quite surreal, as in “Coffee and Cigarettes”, where Roberto Benigni dubs himself from clumsy English into perfect Italian.

The same goes for the cinema. There used to be one theatre that showed movies in English (the Pasquino, in Trastevere), but at the moment there are only some theatres that show some movies in English and that sometimes even only on some days of the week.

You know the movie is in English when it is billed as VO (Versione Originale).

Cinemas in Rome that show movies in English

The Metropolitan (Via del Corso, 7, Tel: 063200933) always has one screen showing a movie in English, generally the biggest blockbuster of the moment.
From the B&B Chaplin Hostel Rome you take the subway to Flaminio (line A, 4 stops), take the Piazza del Popolo-exit and on the Piazza take the middle one of the 3 streets that form the “tridente”.

Warner Village Moderno (Piazza della Repubblica, 44, Tel: 0647779111) is another one of the cinemas in Rome that show movies in the original language (original language, by the way, 99 times out of a hundred means that it is in English), but unless the film in question is really big (on the scale of Harry Potter or Starwars) during the weekends they will revert to the dubbed versions.
From the Hostel Chaplin Bed and Breakfast Rome you walk to Termini, look for the main exit, onto the bus square. You will see a big white building in the background. Walk towards this building and you will be on Piazza della Repubblica.