re: Where to stay in Rome.

My wife and I did an Italy trip a few years ago. We spent 3 nights and 2 full days in Rome and felt like it was enough. We stayed in Trastavere in an AirBnB. We loved the area, very walkable and had a more residential feel than across the river near all of the sites. We would get a quick coffee on the corner and catch a cab into the city proper. Doing our research the only consensus we could find was to NOT stay near the main train station in Rome.

The first day we did a Colosseum and Roman Forum small group tour through Walks of Italy. We did the early morning tour and it was excellent. Took about 4 hours, we hit the Colosseum first before it was crowded, and then walked across to the Forum. We spent that afternoon seeing other sites in town- Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, etc.

The second day we hit the Vatican. We did a tour called "Pristine Sistine", also by Walks of Italy. We entered the Vatican complex before it opened to the public, and our group of 20 or so had about 15 mins inside the Chapel where it was just us. It was awesome. Our group then did a full tour of the Vatican, and made a quick pass through the Chapel again- and this time it was shoulder to shoulder.

The tour ended inside St. Peter's and we also had the Scavi tour lined up that afternoon. Caught a cab back into Rome, walked among the ruins for a bit and saw a nice sunset. We headed out the next morning. We felt like the 2 full days was enough to see everything we wanted.