Slow down or head to the coast
Book ahead — strictly limited to 360 visitors per 2-hour slot. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, Caravaggio's Boy with Basket of Fruit. Small, exquisite, no crowds. One of the world's best small museums.
Rome's Central Park. Rent a rowboat on the lake, rent bikes, let the kids run. The view from the Pincio terrace over Piazza del Popolo is postcard-perfect.
Rome's most charming neighborhood. Cobblestones, ivy, artisan shops, the best food. Da Enzo al 29 for lunch (get there at 11:30 or wait 2 hours). Suppli (fried rice balls) from Supplizio.
Ancient Roman port city — remarkably preserved, far less crowded than Pompeii. The kids can run through ancient streets, climb on ruins, see 2,000-year-old mosaics. 30 min from Rome by train.
Quiet Italian beach town. 50 min by train from Termini. Real Italian seaside — seafood lunch, sandy beach, zero tourists. The antidote to two days of museum-going.
Day three in Rome and you have a choice. Option A: the Borghese Gallery in the morning (book ahead — it's tiny and extraordinary), Villa Borghese gardens for the kids to run, and Trastevere for a long Italian lunch that turns into an Italian afternoon.
Option B: escape to the coast. Santa Marinella is a real Italian beach town — 50 minutes by train, sandy beach, seafood restaurants where the menu is whatever came off the boats this morning. Or Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port — less famous than Pompeii but better preserved and the kids can actually run around the ruins without ropes and guards.
Ricki and Maritza will vote for Trastevere. A café, a glass of wine, watching the neighborhood go by. That IS Rome, and they're right.
Centro Storico
Last night in Rome. Pack tonight — early train to Florence tomorrow.
Ostia Antica has a 2,000-year-old public toilet (a marble bench with holes) — Roman engineering solved plumbing problems we'd recognize today. The sewer system used running water from aqueducts.
Rowboats at Villa Borghese! The Temple of Asclepius sits on an island in the lake. Or at the beach: building sandcastles on the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Trastevere is the perfect Ricki-and-Maritza day. Flat streets, beautiful architecture, and the whole point is to sit, eat, and watch. Santa Marinella beach is also easygoing — flat sand, beach chairs for rent, seafood lunch on the waterfront.