Rome -Travel guides

Guidebooks that suggest one can pop into Rome for a day or two should be highly suspect. One could spend all that time in a line at the Vatican Museum.

We had 9 days in Rome and we spent the first 3 exploring our neighbourhood. I found our apartment on the internet on HOLIDAY RENTALS.COM.UK ROME & LAZIO and selected
property 57930. It was an excellent choice. Margaret Merode, the owner was most helpful.(merodepratesi@tin.it) The apartment besides having a small kitchen and a bathtub, is close to many sights. It is reasonable, and blissfully quiet, an uncommon state in Rome.

The most useful guides book were:
LONELY PLANET ROME
RICK STEVE'S ROME His little drawings are very helpful--especially those that
explain the bus system
EYEWITNESS TOP TEN ROME This also has a guide to the buses.
DORLING KINDERSLEY TRAVEL GUIDE TO ROME or THE KNOPF GUIDE TO ROME
The Casa per Ferie S. Maria Alle Fornaci dei Padri Trinitaria puts
out a terrific small guide and map. I suspect you have to stay there
to get this.
MAP: LET'S GO ROME plasticized map is readable.

The best guide to restaurants in Rome is
BEST EATS IN ITALY by Sandra Gustafson
We had a wonderful dinner on the patio at Al Fontanone in Trastevere
--an antipasto plate, lasagne, Roman artichokes, succulent roast lamb
and vignole, a vegetable stew accompanied by the house wine. Pino, our lovely host brought us glasses of limoncello and vin santo with biscotti after dinner. Needless to say we returned.

We had terrific pasta and pizza at Da Francesco, located near the Pantheon.
Both restaurants are busy and reasonable.

Because I love to cook, I wisely took along
ITALIAN FOOD by Elizabeth David and I found a copy of
THE CONCISE GASTRONOMY OF ITALY by Anna del Conte.

Other reading:
I took along two Ian Pears books, but wasn't as taken with them as I expected.
I enjoyed David Hewson's SEASON FOR THE DEAD. Nic Costa, detective and
Caravaggio buff, finds himself caught up in several murders which echo some of the content of Caragaggio's work and have lots to do with Vatican politics.