I've been to Rome, Venice, Florence, and Lake Garda before. I don't remember much from Florence other than wanting to leave as soon as possible after being bored looking at churches and having sandwiches for lunch. It just wasn't for me. On the flip side, Rome was my favorite, I remember the last night there walking around seeing so many different street performances (actual bands, not just single buskers). I think I've decided to go straight from Bologna to Rome, but wondering where to stay. When we first arrive, we'll be across from the Roman Forum for 2 days. Then at the end of our trip we have 4 days, with the last day booked next to Termini Roma for easy access to the train to FCO. Where do you recommend staying for the other 3 days?
We always stay in Trastevere, but it's getting harder to find reasonably priced accommodations as the demand only seems to grow and grow, especially if you try to avoid AirBnB and similar. It's already touristy, but that's okay, we're tourists. No shame in that, and chasing a so-called 'authentic' visit away from tourism only serves to help destroy what's left of the central city remaining for the folks that actually live there.
Here's a rough map of the main areas:
It's an extremely lively neighbourhood, frequented by Romans and visitors both, and has endless tiny streets with all the ochre painted medieval buildings and cobble streets you could hope for. There's plenty of awful restaurants and bars, but just as many good ones if you know how to look. The corridor between Piazza Santa Maria and Piazza Trilussa (highlighted in red) is craziest, and probably not a good place to stay if you like to go to sleep before 2 am, unless you're sure the spot is off a busy street.
Our favourite area is highlighted in purple, as it's still got lots of spots for food and drinks, but is much quieter and also offers super easy walking access across the bridges to the historical centre. It also tends to be quite pricey (or sold out of you don't book early) for that reason, so you can go a bit further south (highlighted orange) and still have fairly easy access to most spots.
To give you an idea, we're going in early October, and the only decent place we could find for less than $300/night was just under the red area on the west side of Viale di Trastevere. It's not ideal to walk into the historical centre, but we're going to do more exploring of the edges this trip, so it's less of a factor for us.
Beyond that, if you prefer something more genteel and less rowdy, Monti is a nice area if you don't stay too close to Termini (the blocks immediately adjacent are worst), though it's still remarkably safe. If we want easy access to Termini for an early train, we usually stay up along Via Venti Settembre near Via Antonio Salambra, as it's an easy walk to the station from there, but still a decent area and surprisingly sleepy.
You can also stay in Testaccio, but as the AirBnB's force their way in, some of the locals may be less than welcoming. I prefer to do day visits their and not contribute to the death of the city of at all possible. Trastevere is already killed by tourism for locals, so staying there is like damage control, I think...
