If you are in Rome for a week, buy a weekly ticket for their city public transport system. It's good value and you can reach a lot on their metro/tram/bus network covered by the ticket.
Rome's a 'fun' place. Absolutely crazy place, but some how still friendly. Found Paris pretty but the people were not as nice.
Italy is easy to get around, their railways are pretty fast and frequent and you don't need to know Italian to buy a ticket - all the major stations have multilingual vending machines that are hooked up to the same reservations network as the terminals used by the staff. Unless you are doing something really odd, the vending machines will supply what you need.
Many Italians can comminicate in at least broken english, although they are much amused and friendlier if you try Italian first
Just remeber to 'validate' your train ticket before getting on a train. (Little 'boxes' on the platforms stamp the date on the ticket). It's a large fine if you get caught, and you don't want to get into an argument with an ticket inspector who may decide they don't know any English just to make life hard for you
Many of the Italian railways staff were wearing name badges that also indicated what languages they spoke.
Italy has a lot of history. There's a lifetime worth of stuff to look at.