We didn't rate it...
In hindsight it would have been nicer to stay in Florence and do a half day trip to the Colosseum.
We stayed 2.5 days. We got the City Sightseeing Bus for 2 days with all the added extras - including entrance into the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum. We wanted to do a full loop in the bus then head to the Vatican city and Trevi Fountain on day 1, then visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forum on day 2.
Firstly, the bus doesn't do a full loop without stopping for 5-10 minutes at each location (mostly so the staff can smoke) and then stopping at the train station for 30 minutes. Every time. It only takes 1.5 hours to go around the loop (probably less if they continued on). Everything is close enough to walk - so we walked everywhere the second day.
At the Vatican Museum there were people EVERYWHERE. Too many people. We got in line to get our tickets - although we paid for skip the line tickets, we got a printed voucher online to get another voucher on the bus, then another voucher at the info centre, to finally get tickets in line at the Vatican. After a group of guys pushed in on us, we waited about 15 minutes to get our tickets. When we finally got to the counter, the guy 'serving' us didn't look up, instead he proceeded to put staples in his stapler, almost individually for about 30 seconds. When I looked behind me to see where Stuart was and see if we could move the lines he got offended and asked me to wait. ...
We got our tickets and entered the Vatican. There was literally so many people there you couldn't breathe, let alone move. And there were tourist groups everywhere. Instead of moving to the side to talk about the artefacts, they would form a line across the entire walkway so no one could move.. If we could have, we would have run through it to get out. It took us a good 30 minutes to get out and we were moving through as fast as we could.
You also couldn't walk down the street without being harassed by the restaurants. They tell you to come in and eat, and they push flyers in your hands. You walk past and say no thank you but they say 'excuse me lady - here - for you' and when you say No thank you, they look at you like you just burnt down their house.
We walked past the Trevi Fountain - it was closed for cleaning (out the money). The Spanish steps - closed for construction.
We stayed at the Artemide Hotel. The staff at the rooftop restaurant (pic below) and the gentleman who welcomed us every morning for breakfast were wonderful. Their customer service was impeccable. The cleaning staff kept pushing our things off the bathroom sink and the small area in the bedroom where we put our maps and bags etc. Seemed like a clean/clear space on the bench was important to them. Not touching our toothbrush is important to us..
