By air

Rome has two airports : Leonardo da Vinci, better known simply as Fiumicino, which handles most scheduled flights, and Ciampino, where you’ll arrive if you’re travelling on a charter, or with Go or one of the other low-cost European airlines. Taxis in from either airfield cost around L80,000, more at night, and take 30-45 minutes; they’re worth considering if you are in a group but otherwise the public transport connections are reasonable.

Fiumicino is connected to the centre of Rome by direct trains, which make the thirty-minute ride to Termini for L16,000; services begin at 7.37am, and then leave hourly from 8.07am until 10.07pm. Alternatively, there are more frequent trains to Trastevere, Ostiense and Tiburtina stations, apiece on the edge of the city centre, roughly every twenty minutes from 6.27am to 11.27pm; tickets to these stations cost L8000, and Tiburtina and Ostiense are just a short metro ride from Termini, making it a much cheaper (and not necessarily slower) journey; or you can catch city bus #175 from Ostiense, or city bus #492 or #649 from Tiburtina, to the centre of town. These cheaper alternatives do inevitably, however, involve a certain amount more bag-hauling.

There are no direct connections between the city centre and Ciampino . Hourly buses run from the airfield to the Anagnina metro station, at the end of line A - a thirty-minute journey (L2000), from where it’s a twenty-minute ride into the centre. Failing that, you can take a bus from the airfield to Ciampino overground train station, a ten-minute journey, and then take a train into Termini, which is a further twenty minutes. The BA budget offshoot, Go, incidentally, lay on their own bus to Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore, half an hour after the arrival of apiece of their flights, but it’s no quicker and they charge L18,000 for it.

By train

Travelling by train from most places in Italy, or indeed from other parts of Europe, you arrive at Stazione Termini , centrally placed for all parts of the city and meeting-point of the two metro lines and many city bus routes. There’s a left-luggage artefact here (daily 5:15am-midnight; L5000 per piece every 12hr), but bear in mind that they won’t accept plastic bags; note that the Enjoy Rome office will also look after its customers’ luggage.

Among other rail stations in Rome, Tiburtina, is a stop for some north-south intercity trains; selected routes around Lazio are handled by the Regionali platforms of Stazione Termini (a further five-minute achievement from the regular platforms); and there’s also the COTRAL urban train station on Piazzale Flaminio, which runs to La Giustiniana - the so-called Roma-Nord line.

By bus

Arriving by bus can leave you in any one of a number of places around the city. The main stations include Ponte Mammolo (trains from Tivoli and Subiaco); Lepanto (Cerveteri, Civitavecchia, Bracciano area); EUR Fermi (Nettuno, Anzio, southern Lazio coast); Anagnina (Castelli Romani); Saxa Rubra (Viterbo and around). All of these stations are on a metro line, except Saxa Rubra, which is on the Roma-Nord line and connected by trains every fifteen minutes with the station at Piazzale Flaminio, on metro line A. Eurolines buses from outside Italy terminate on Piazza della Repubblica.

By road

Coming into the city by road can be quite confusing. If you are on the A1 highway coming from the north take the exit “Roma Nord”; from the south, follow exit “Roma Est”. Both lead you to the Grande Raccordo Anulare, which circles the city and is connected with all of the major arteries into the city centre - the Via Cassia from the north, Via Salaria from the northeast, Via Tiburtina or Via Nomentana from the east, Via Appia Nuova and the Pontina from the south, Via Prenestina and Via Casilina or Via Cristoforo Colombo from the southeast, and Via Aurelia from the northwest.