Staying in a design hotel Rome is among the most rewarding ways to experience this classic destination, offering every modern comfort while allowing you to explore the city at your own pace. There are many fine sights to see, and some will appeal more to certain visitors than others – but there are some that are on more or less everyone’s ‘must-do’ list, and visiting them is always a rewarding experience. Here are three of Rome’s most unmissable attractions.
The Roman Forum
One thing is immediately noticeable from the moment you step out of your design hotel – Rome is so full of ancient buildings and ruins that history fans can appreciate the past simply by strolling around any quarter of the city. To really gain a sense of both the grandeur and the culture of ancient Rome, however, there is nowhere better to pay a visit to than the Roman Forum, where the remains of the ancient city’s preeminent religious and government buildings. Broken and weathered though it may be, the ancient centre of the city still conjures images of the time when Rome’s most important political and spiritual matters were conducted among these temples.
The Colosseum
After exploring the civic heart of this ancient world capital, guests staying at a design hotel, Rome can get a feel for the city’s original entertainment scene by paying a visit to the Colosseum – surely one monument that is on every traveller’s itinerary when they come to Rome. This enormous arena features on countless postcards and holiday snapshots, and yet to see it up close is always awe-inspiring, evoking a sense of the time when it was regularly filled to its 50,000 person capacity with spectators gathering to witness the dramatic events that would unfold within. These days, the ground on which battle re-enactments, gladiator matches, executions and other public spectacles were held are much more tranquil, but a palpable sense of the site’s history seems to remain for many visitors, all the more so when the images of the past are brought to life with a guided tour of the site.
The Vatican City
From one fascinating aspect of Rome’s history to another, the Vatican City offers plenty of splendid sights and fascinating stories of its own, making it an enduringly popular place to visit while staying in a design hotel Rome. The city is full of striking churches, but none of them can quite compare to the Vatican’s star attraction, St Peter’s Basilica. The site of one of the most important buildings in Christendom for almost 1,900 years, it draws huge numbers of pilgrims and tourists from around the world every year. Other highlights are the Vatican Museums, and Michelangelo’s iconic frescoes on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.