Rome Spotlight

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The Eternal City might offer an astonishing amount of sights – the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Borghese Gardens, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps, just to name a few – but the real beauty of Rome is how the bewildering blend of ancient and modern interact with each other on a daily basis: the Franciscan monk trudging down a narrow cobbled lane in Trastevere talking on a cell phone; strikers (every week a group is on strike in the Italian capital) marching past the iconic marble stumps in the ancient Forum; the eternal cacophony of Vespas buzzing through Piazza Venezia; the hip wine bars tucked away in the tangle of medieval streets behind Piazza Navona.

It all gives this layered city its particular sweetness – its la dolce vita, if you will – that can't be replicated anywhere else. But for a city that's been an eternal tourist magnet, Rome has never been the most visitor-friendly place. Fortunately, that's finally changing. Thanks to Walter Veltroni, the city's tourism-minded mayor, along with the scrubbing the city got at the turn of the 21st century, the Italian capital has never been more accessible and easy to navigate: public wireless access is being installed, the city's once inconsistent public transportation has been straightened out, tourist information kiosks now dot the center, and new architectural projects – designed by some of the world's greatest living architects (Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Zaha Hadid, and Paolo Portughesi) – have risen all over the city.

With so much to see (or better, experience), three days in Rome may only be enough to scratch the surface and get a small taste of the city. Five days will allow you to do a bit more excavation, to spend a bit more time staring up at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum or lingering a bit longer over a cappuccino at an outdoor café on Piazza Navona. A week in Rome is ideal, giving you ample time to get lost in the labyrinth of streets around Campo dei Fiori, to get a better understanding of the layers of history that lie underneath the cobblestones, to peak into some of the city's 400+ churches, and to explore all the ancient Roman sights.

But don't fret if you can't see and experience everything Rome has to offer in one trip. After all, Silvio Negro, an Italian writer who made a career out of writing about Rome, once said of the Eternal City, "Rome, a lifetime is not enough." He was right.

• Staring up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

• A stroll through the Jewish Ghetto

• Tossing a coin in the Trevi Fountain

• Sipping wine in Piazza Navona

• Marveling at the Roman Forum and Colosseum

See Rome Travel Guide