Doug:

I strongly recommend the Cavalieri Hilton. It was great having a wonderful view of Rome and Vatican from our window.

I would strongly recommend walking tours through Scala Reale. They have a number of three and four hour walking tours. The two main ones are Ancient Rome (colosseum, forum, etc) and Vatican, both four hours. These are limited to six people and were 50 euros per person. We also took walking tour from Navonna to Spanish Steps at night. These are led by Art Historians, Architects, etc; usually post-graduate students. We also arranged a private tour of Villa Borghese. This ended up being a six person group when we happened to mention it to our fellow tourists on the Vatican tour. That was fantastic.

There website is www.scalareale.org. Check it out. Our guide for three of our tours was Liz, a post graduate Art historian. She was fantastic.

Her tour of Vatican was wonderful. Only four hours but we saw so much because she knew how to maximize our time at the important spots and get us around the large loud tour groups. If only for this tour, I would contact them. If you want to go to Villa Borghese and not want to have to worry about how to get tickets, I would ask for that tour too.