The Foodlover's Odyssey blog has a post on Rome with a View, listing the terrace on Castel St. Angelo (we'll have to watch the movie based on Dan Brown's Angels and Demons again), the Garden of Oranges on the Aventine Hill, St. Peter's Dome, Monte Gianicolo (in Trastevere), and the Campidoglio. Dark Rome adds the Palatino so maybe we need to hit all seven hills. We can also take a glass elevator to the top of the King Victor Emanuel monument (otherwise known as the wedding cake) for a 360 panoramic view of the city. And there is il Pincio in the Villa Borghese overlooking the Piazza del Populo.
How do we get to these places?
We can walk up Nazionale to Piazza della Repubblica and take the Metro A towards Battistini and get off at Ottaviano and walk over to Vatican City (22 minutes). Or we can walk down Nazionale to Quattro Fontane and take the #64 bus (the Pickpocket Express) to Saint Peter's (28 minutes). Or walk up (left) on Nazionale to the Nazionale/Torino bus stop and take the #40 bus towards Borgo Sant'Angelo and get off at Traspontina- Conciliazione near the Castel Sant'Angelo (31 minutes). Delightfully Italy has a post on Climbing up St. Peter's Basilica's Dome: "You can take the elevator to the roof level (saving 320 steps), but if you want to be on the top of the cupola you must take the stairs for the last portion (551 steps in total). The entrance cost is 7 Euros for elevator, 5 Euros for stairs." That still leaves quite a few stairs and they are narrow and dark but you can also view the inside of St. Peter's from the gallery at the elevator stop. In case we chicken out of those 231 additional steps to the top.
From the above posting we can see that the #40 bus is a good way to get directly to Castel Sant'Angelo. The entrance fee is €10. The best time to go is in the morning or evening so that the sun isn't in your eyes for the view south.
This is a bit longer and involves a half mile walk uphill at the end (on a narrow road without sidewalks?). You take the #170 towards Agricola from the bus stop at Quattro Fontane on Via Nazionale and get off at the Bocca della Verita (good time to see it), and then walk from the Via della Greca to the Clivo dei Publicii which becomes Via di Santa Sabina and goes up the Aventine Hill. Maybe there are steps or a path we could take instead of the road. And while we're on the Aventine Hill, we can visit the Knights of Malta. The photo was taken in January but it might look about the same in November.
To get to Trastevere we could take the bus #40 and then the tram #8 at the Piazza Venezia. Or we could walk to Trastevere: it's about a mile and a half from Via Napoli and there are lots of things to see. Of course we could hit all seven hills with a Vespa Tour but it is a bit pricey at $232. This photo was taken in February 2012 when Rome had an unusual snow storm. You can check out the other photos of "Snow in Rome" if you think the skies are always blue and sunny there. I'm getting us prepared for the worst!
This will be easy since it is in the middle of the Centro Storico and we'll need to climb the hill to see some other things. We can walk down Via Nazionale to the Quattro Fontane bus stop and take #70, #64 or #N8 to the Piazza Venezia and from there walk around the east side of the Campidoglio. That means we miss the 124 steps up to Santa Maria d'Aracoeli and Michelangelo's Cordonata up to the Piazza del Campidoglio. My knees are better going uphill than down so maybe we should approach it from the west, although we don't have to walk up the 124 steps on our knees. This is where the ancient Romans built their Temple to Jupiter.
Whatever it is called, you can take the glass elevator (Roma dal Cielo) to the roof for a 360 degree view of Rome. According to Italy Heaven: "The top panoramic terrace and lift ('Quadrigas Terrace') are open...until 6:30pm Monday-Thursday and until 7:30pm Friday-Sunday, and are best reached from an entrance in the Piazza Ara Coeli side of the Vittoriano, or via the staircase from Piazza del Campidoglio. The glass lift does not descend to ground level, so if you can't manage the steps, head inside the Vittoriano and use the internal lifts to reach the lower terrace." It is next to the Campidoglio so we should hit both at once.
7. The Palatine Hill (Il Palatino)
We could walk the 1.7 km (21 minutes) to the Palatino because the Google directions for taking the bus or metro only seem to complicate matters. The Palatine Hill, where Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, and the Roman Forum beneath it, is now a large open-air museum and can be visited on the same ticket as the Colosseum. Is that a one day activity?
Do we walk uphill from the Spanish Steps or do we approach it from the other side in the Villa Borghese? For the Spanish Steps side we can walk up Via Nazionale to Piazza della Repubblica and take Metro A towards Battistini and get off at Spagna (a 2 minute ride). Then it is about a half kilometer up the hill to the Pincio. If we want to go the back way and also see the Via Veneto, we can walk up Via Nazionale to Piazza della Repubblica and catch the #N1 bus towards Battistini-Soria and go 7 stops (8 min) to Victor Hugo. Then walk about half a kilometer west to il Pincio. Maybe we can go one way and return the other.
