Facile Tours

La Befana is the old woman on a broomstick who, on the night between January 5 and 6, fills children's stockings with sweets, or coal if they misbehaved. In Rome, January 6 is a public holiday with the Pope's Epiphany Mass in St. Peter's and a costumed parade on Via della Conciliazione, while the Vatican Museums are closed.

Rome is hilly, cobbled and spread out, so plan short days and ride between areas instead of walking. The Colosseum and the Vatican Museums have lifts, accessible routes and wheelchairs to borrow, under-18s enter Italian state museums free, and a taxi, a private driver or a golf cart tour covers the long distances.

Choose a vintage Fiat 500 tour if you want to sit back with your group and take photos while a driver handles Rome's traffic. Choose a Vespa tour if you love two wheels. On a Vespa you ride behind a driver or, with the right license, ride yourself. Fiat 500 tours take children from age 3, scooters from 5.

On a rainy day in Rome, go indoors: the Vatican Museums (closed on most Sundays), the Capitoline Museums, Galleria Borghese (booking required) or the National Roman Museum. Watch the rain fall through the Pantheon's oculus, go underground at San Clemente or the catacombs, or take a cooking class. Our golf cart tours run in the rain, with covers.

For most first-time visitors with a day or two, yes: a golf cart covers in 3 hours what would take most of a day on foot, with the sights seen from the outside. Shared tours start at €35 per person and private ones at €350 for up to 3 people. If you are fit and on a budget, walk.

Romans eat a meatless Christmas Eve dinner of fish and fried vegetables: marinated eel, skate broth, spaghetti with clams, fried salt cod, broccoli and artichokes. Christmas Day brings pasta in broth, capon and lamb. The sweets are pangiallo, torrone, panettone and pandoro, and on New Year's Eve Romans eat cotechino with lentils for luck.

Rome's New Year's Eve centers on a free concert at the Circus Maximus, which the city has organized for the last four years, starting at 21:00. Last year the metro ran until 2:30, and a city ordinance banned private fireworks from 31 December to 6 January. On 1 January, the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums are closed.

A full ticket to Castel Sant'Angelo costs €18, and visitors under 18 enter free. EU citizens aged 18 to 25 pay €2. The castle is open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 19:30 (last entry 18:30), and entry is free for everyone on the first Sunday of every month. Book on the official site, especially for weekends.

The Circus Maximus was ancient Rome's chariot-racing track, about 600 m long, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills. Today it is a long grassy park, free and always open. The excavated ruins at its east end, with the medieval Torre della Moletta, cost €7 and open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30.

The Castelli Romani are the hill towns of the Alban Hills, south-east of Rome. Frascati is 30 minutes from Roma Termini by regional train, for €2.10 one way. In one day you can taste Frascati wine, look down on Lake Albano from Castel Gandolfo and eat porchetta in Ariccia. To link several towns, a car or a driver helps.