Where to stay in Rome

Three thousand years stacked on top of each other, still busy being a capital. Stay central and walk — the Forum, the Pantheon and a dozen churches worth the detour are closer together than the map suggests, and the city rewards wandering more than ticking off.

Rome is huge, but a first visit fits inside a thirty-minute walk. The centro storico around the Pantheon is the dearest and needs no metro. Monti, between Termini and the Forum, is the compromise most people should take: cobbled, small, on foot from the Colosseum and the trains. Trastevere across the river is loud until late, so sleep a street off the piazzas. Prati, by the Vatican, is cheaper and dull after dark; Testaccio is where Romans eat. The blocks around Termini suit a dawn train only: drab, and far from anything you came for.

It suits walkers, and nobody with a hire car: the centre is a camera-policed ZTL and fines arrive months later, so collect a car leaving Rome, never arriving. Cobbles punish pushchairs and wheelchairs, older palazzi lack lifts, and the Colosseum, Vatican Museums and Borghese Gallery are timed entry, the Borghese weeks ahead.

Four nights is the minimum, and Rome belongs first, while the legs are fresh. The Frecciarossa puts Florence ninety minutes away and Naples just over an hour; pair it with one, not both. See the Forum at opening and the Trevi Fountain before eight; by ten the groups have the centre.

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