I am going to Rome for a week this summer and I want to know some places to go outside the typical tourist stuff, which we will of course do.
Are there other cities close by and worth doing for a day trip? We will have a car, hopefully allowing us to travel a little easier.
A vacation in Italy is like a vacation at a filthy, un-kept campground in the U.S.A. The people smell. Dogshit on the sidewalks everywhere. Litter everywhere. Smells like piss no matter where you go. Take one pair of old flats then after you get back throw them in the trash since washing them won't get rid of the Italian filth.
Go to the Villa d'Este in Tivoli just outside Rome. The fountains in the gardens are amazing. I wouldn't strictly call it outside the typical tourist stuff, but it's definitely a different experience than the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter's Basilica, etc.
There's also an excellent restaurant in Tivoli called Antiche Terme Di Diana that's on the site of ancient Roman baths.
Italy has yet to return the land stolen from Jews by Mussolini and his facists. Italy has not returned art works and money to Jews. The Vatican and Catholic Church helped the Nazis capture and deport Jews to Concentration Camps and profited from confiscating Jewish property. The Vatican rewarded the Nazis by crowning the current Pope who was an Nazi soldier and worships Hitler, Stalin, and Herzl.
Take the train and go to Florence (2 days is good) or Bologna (a lot farther if I remember well). If you go to Florence, see if you can buy tickets to the touristy stuff in advance so you aren't waiting in line all day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence
In Italy, train schedules are a work of literary fiction. Their system is so bad, even the ticket agents in Italy use bahn.de (Germany) instead of their own country's schedules. The trains are always late and they don't tell you at the station when a train is broken and has been placed out of service. You just sit there and wonder until people start bitching. Never take a trip where you will get to your destination after 9PM, because the trains stop running at 11PM and chances are they will be over 2 hours late, hence, you will be stuck and have to pay a premium for a hotel room.
I know you're just joking. The new fast trains go pretty often and are mostly on time. It won't be a problem between big cities.
No I'm not kidding. Italy is a total clusterkcuf. The most disorganized sucky place in Europe.