Ooooooh, you fancy huh?
Ah, the Spanish Steps of Rome. You have it written as a "to do" on your itinerary, so lets get to it.
First, it's PACKED. Like, a metric ton of people. There's a decent amount of space here, so the area can get pretty damn thick with people, and boy do they pack it in. When we were there, the steps were LOUSY with tourists. The area itself is pretty upscale. This is the Rodeo Drive of, what I called, the "Downtown Rome" area. There are boujee ass clothing stores and boutiques (Gucci, Prada, Bulgari, Hermès, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, Max Mara, Jimmy Choo, Montblanc, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana), so if you feel like flossing, or going broke, this is the place to be.
The steps themselves are cool. They are, after all, just steps, but the view from the top is pretty cool. You get to overlook the city and if the sunlight catches it right, it really is impressive. The church at the top of the steps is pretty cool, and there's also a fountain at the bottom where you can fill up your bottle.
The things that detract from the area are the aforementioned crowd, and the thing that ruins EVERY landmark in Rome; THE GODDAMN PEDDLERS! Oh my god. Spanish Steps tied for the worst and most aggressive peddlers, along with the Colosseum. They do this thing where a guy will walk up to your wife/girlfriend/best girl/whatever and put a rose in her hand. When she invariably tries to give it back, he says, "noooo, that is for you. Free of charge!" Then he will walk up to the husband/boyfriend/bae, and tap his pocket, rattling all the coins in there, and being like, "c'mon....give me something for the rose." Literally after just refusing to accept it back and LITERALLY saying it was free. I'm going to use literally again, because I LITERALLY watched one of these d-bags walk back over to the girl, SNATCH the rose out of her hand and call her a name after the boyfriend refused to pay. We were WELL hip to the game way before coming to Rome, and there was no way we entertained any of these jerks, but I literally had to basically threaten a guy to get the hell away from me, after he wouldn't stop propositioning my wife with a rose, after we politely, then firmly, then aggressively told him "no thank you." I REALLY REALLY think they should have police at these sites. I don't begrudge these people trying to sell things, but they are predatory and it takes away from the overall experience.
Anywho, unless you're there for the shopping, the Spanish Steps isn't on par with the other "big boy" sites, like St. Peters, Trevi Fountain or the Colosseum. Still, it's a nice view and walking distance to another diamond in the rough, Villa Borghese. read more