Roman was the culminating city on my husband and my tour of Italy.  We went to Roman with eager expectations of what is was going to be like.  My husband and I had booked one of those “skip the line tours” of the Coliseum and the Roman Forum, but what we didn’t realize is that this would mean that we would have to rush through the Coliseum a little bit so that we could stay on schedule for our group meeting time.  Then we were walked over to the Roman Forum by our guide and dropped off to our own devises.  (I would definitely do more research on the tour if I was doing it again).  The Coliseum didn’t disappoint, but when we got to the Forum, life got real so hopefully you can learn from our mistakes and can have a wonderful Forum experience like we ended up having. 

Oh My Gosh! There’s No Food!

Once we got dropped off in the Forum, we were there.  There wasn’t a reentry ticket so that meant we had to stay there until we had seen the entirety of the Forum.  The only problem was, we had started out Coliseum tour at 11am, and we got dropped off at the Forum around 1:30 and there was no lunch break.  If you are my husband, and it’s 1:30, you need to be fed and soon as possible! He gets hangry! Because of that, priority number 1 became finding food in the Forum.  We asked the people who worked there were we could get food. They seemed unsure at first, but then they remembered that there were some vending machines somewhere…but they seemed a little unsure exactly where.  We wandered, we asked more workers how to get to the vending machine, we walked some more, we asked some more.  I felt like we were on a quest for the Fountain of Youth or something.  Honestly, I have never had such a difficult time finding food in my entire life! We finally did find the vending machines hidden up in a cave at the top of a hill.  We then had the joy of trying to figure out what snacks you could put together to make a lunch.  The answer is there really isn’t the perfect combination of chips and cookies that will make a filling lunch, but at least it was something.  My sage advice is to plan your time wisely and eat before you go into the Forum as well as bring snacks. 

It’s Really Sunny

In London, you plan for rain everyday whether you think it’s really going to happen. In Rome (in the summertime at least), you need to plan for the sun.  Italians know that the sun and the heat can be intense in the middle of the day, and that’s one of the reasons the Italian culture hits the indoors during the middle of the day.  When you’re a tourist, however, you want to pack your day to the fullest and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of your day so you press on during midday.  The Forum is really exposed though, and there are hardly any places to get out of the direct sun, so what we found was helpful was to take an umbrella and use it as a sun umbrella.  It makes a HUGE difference and it really helped us be able to enjoy our afternoon in the Forum.    

There’s Not Much Posted to Help You Understand the Place

The Roman Forum, for good or for bad, is what I would call a “primative” place.  As a tourist, I had expected such a renowned place with so much tourist activity would be a fully fleshed out tourist trap with signs to help guide you through it, but it didn’t.  There were hardly any signs.  The signs that were posted merely told you the name of the streets and buildings.  Now, even though I considered myself to be decently knowagble about Roman history, I realized when I was in the Roman Forum that I really had no idea of what happened where and what the significance was of the different streets and buildings was.  When I got there, I looked around at the ruins and felt very much disappointed because I had expected to be caught up in the history and the grandeur of the place, and honestly, it was very hard to imagine what the buildings would have looked like from the remaining pillars that stood there. 

Get an Audio Guide to Help You Understand the Place

Standing there in the middle of the Roman Forum feeling a little sad and disappointed that I was going to miss out on understanding this incredible place was just when my husband came in with his clutch move.  He remembered that Rick Steves had audio tours you could download for free for different tourist attractions.   He found the Forum one on his phone, downloaded it, and in about five minutes time, we were up and running with our free audio tour… and what a difference it made! I started to be able to navigate the streets like and ancient Roman and smell the incense being offered up the pantheon of Roman gods.  All in all, I was so glad that we had something to help shape our understanding of the Forum.  Whether you take a professionally guided tour, buy the audio guide available at the entrance, or download an audio guide like we did, I would definitely not go into the Roman Forum without assistance and think that you will appreciate it to its fullest.

Do Allow Yourself Plenty of Time at the Top

When we had finally finished our audio tour of the Forum, we climbed to the top of the Forum.   There is a beautiful view up there of the entire Forum with the Coliseum in the background, and you WILL want to get pictures.  This is a great spot to take that Instagram photo or that new profile pic for Facebook.  Sunset time is great for doing this because the sun will be behind you as you get that perfect vacation picture with the Coliseum and Forum in the background.   This is also a perfect place just to take a deep breath and take in the beauty of Rome.  The major sites of Rome are so closely pack together that you can see almost everything from this pinnacle. So just spend some time up there enjoying it, spotting the sites you recognize, and taking in the view of the emperors. 

Do Know that They Take Closing Time Very Seriously!

While were are up on the Palatine Hill enjoying taking in all the views and getting our photos of a lifetime, an announcement came over a loud speaker, “The Roman Forum will be closing in 15 minutes.”  Again, a little while latter, “The Roman Forum will be closing in 10 minutes.”  We, like all the other tourist up there kind of took this as a suggestion and continued to snap out pictures and enjoy the views, but then, when it was officially closing time…(and I’m not making this up…) this enormous man with biceps the size of my head appeared out of nowhere and in his booming bass voice and what seemed to be a thick Russian accent yelled at us, “The Forum is Closed!” tourist scrambled to get a few last shots of this beautiful place, but the commanding, no-nonsense attitude of this Forum bouncer made us realize there would be no grace given to those who tried to push closing time.  My husband and I laughed at this because it was seemingly so random and almost comical, but an important takeaway would be that you need to get to the top early so you can get all the pictures you want… because when it is closing time…it’s closing time.