Looking for ideas of things to do besides the obvious Colosseum and Vatican city stuff. Also recommendations for food would be great!

We did a cooking class that was one of the highlights of our trip. We did ours through a company called Walks of Italy (also did their Vatican and Colosseum tours), but I know others have posted they have booked similar classes elsewhere.

Colosseum after dark tour
Dar Poetta - best pizza I've ever had

We did a cooking class with them in Florence, loved it. We also did a walking food tour through Viator in Rome that we all enjoyed. Actually learned a lot about the history of Rome through it as well. And of course we had great food and a couple spots to try the next few days we were there.

Get online and reserve a necropolis tour at St. Peter's. Borghese Galery is good. I enjoyed the forum more than the colosseum, so do that as well.

Thank you all for your recommendations! Will definitely look into a cooking class, I booked a walking dessert tour our first night there so hopefully can grab a couple of restaurant recs from that.

Borghese Gallery is awesome, you need to get tickets in advance
Baths of Diocletian
Day trip to Pompeii and Naples
All the food er had was great, but Vecchia Roma stick in my memory. It was a place around the corner from our apartment that would not let us in the first night since we did not have reservations. We had lunch there the following day and were blown away.

Pro Tip- always order the carafe of house vino

When are you going?

Btw. Ostia antica is awesome. Subway trip

I'll be going at the end of this month into early January. What all did you do in ostia antica? Don't have anything planned there at the moment but that could change.

walked around for about 4 hours listening to the audio tour...well worth it. decent food at the cafe.

there's a cool little castle near there too.

rick steve's segment from his tv show turned us on to it.

Awesome, I'll look into it. I downloaded his app with all the audio on it. Just emailed you!