Hi,

Re - question 1 - If it's the zoo in/near the Villa Borghese it'll take you around 20/25 mins to walk to the Colluseum, depending on which way you go (we were about 10 mins from the Villa and it took us about 10/15 mins to walk to the Collusseum). You'll need a taxi to get to the Vatican city.

Can't help you with the rest I'm afraid.

Enjoy - we loved Rome!

Hi - thanks for your reply. I took the trip last week and can now answer the questions!

1. Didn't look for the balloon - I knew I would chicken out in the end, so didn't bother.

2. It took us about 30 minutes to walk through the Villa Borghese and get to the top of the Spanish Steps, after that we caught the metro. We were supposed to be getting a bus from our hotel to Silvestro and walking the rest, but there was nowhere to buy a ticket! The woman on reception told us it would take about an hour to walk all the way there. When we did find somewhere open to buy tickets we boughts loads. The Vatican was a convenient tram trip away.

3. Never made it to the antiques market

4. The argentinian restuarant was delicious! Called Baires. On left just a little way up Via Cavour from the forum area. (BTW - had italian rest of meals!) Had yummy beef ribs.

have a look at my post in same discussion form entitled 'rome any info welcome please'(sorry dont know how to direct a link straight from here to make it easier-perhaps a moderator could link it)
anyway, iv detailed the bus we used, it was cheap and you can get easy access between the attractions. save those feet aching.
the zoo was quite central so it is walkable but due to lenghtly queues at attractions it may save time to hop on the buses i mention between attractions