After a week or so of exploring Rome, the best way I can think of to characterize the city is: wonderfully ugly.
There's so much to love about Rome - layers upon layers of history (literally). Old mixed in with the new. Different styles of architecture. So much to see, so much to learn from. Walking about, you're literally steeped in history. We did the "see the sights by day, look it up on Wikipedia at night" thing quite effectively.
The people there are generally kind, at least in the small radius that we travelled in. And of course, the food. Oh, the food. I never had truly al dente pasta till Roma. (And it makes me wonder why Americans are so obsessed with pasta swimming in cream sauce - I didn't see "alfredo" once on any menu.)
And the gelato, my goodness. (It also makes me wonder why Americans are obsessed with ice cream.) With all the cream and fat you wash out any hope of capturing real fruit flavor. We must've visited Ciampini's four times, most of those times I got the mango. Di swore by the chestnut.
On to the ugly - Rome is wonderfully disorganized. There's a certain charm in it, it's a controlled chaos that takes a little while to get used to. For example, I was appalled at the lack of use of lane dividers. Then I realized that roads turn every which way unexpectedly, so drivers in Rome really can't be bothered with trying to stay in neat little rows.
There's graffiti everywhere, of course. My only complaint there is that it's mostly the ugly kind, not the cool hip Banksy stuff.
It's completely overrun with tourists. As an American, I blend right in. In fact, it was hard to tell who was actually Italian, because there were tourists from all over Europe. Russia seems to be doing well, I couldn't keep track of how many trashy, gaudy Russians there were milling about, throwing money left and right.
For most of one day, we paid a visit to the Vatican. It's a must-see-once kind of thing. Even as a non-Catholic it was amazing being in the presence of masterworks from Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Thank goodness Di's family sprung for a private tour, as we got to skip the lines. If you value your time more than a few Euros, I highly recommend it. It's far worse than Disneyland, 3-4 hour wait to get in in the hot Roman sun, and then several more queues to sit through to get into the Sistine Chapel, for example.
A note on the Sistine Chapel: I sure wish people followed the rules, like shut the hell up. Despite repeated warnings about no talking within the chapel, people yakked away like they were on a street corner. A few morons took flash photography. Aside from the morons, it's definitely a must-do once in a lifetime sort of thing, especially now that the ceiling is clean and restored - it looks like it could have been painted yesterday.
We did manage to meet up with Terry and Vanessa for a few hours, effectively crashing their honeymoon. Always nice to see some familiar faces in an unfamiliar city.
In between two stints in Rome, we spent some time exploring the Amalfi coast - highly recommended. It was nice to get out of the city for a few days and dip our toes into the Mediterranean.
Rome travel tip: Fiumicino International airport is the worst piece of shit airport ever. Overrun with people, lines every which way, tiny little tax refund offices kept separate from customs kept separate from the cash or credit card refund stations - it's almost like they want to keep your tax money. (Hrm.) If you don't have skip-the-line status with your airline, get there at least 3 hours before your flight if you want to get any money back from the Italian government.
Last thought on Roma: I loved it and would definitely go back. There's far too much to do and see and eat in just one trip, and the craziness of the city makes it more palatable in small doses. But, as the city is lively and vibrant and has many stories to tell, I definitely felt alive in Rome.
