Visting Rome

[Medicus matt]

What are the sites to visit, beyond the obvious forum and collesium.

I went for two weeks last October (9 days in Rome and then the rest staying in Pompeii.
In the Rome area, my personal favourites were:-
Ostia(allow a whole day to wander around. Easy to get to by train).
The Baths of Caracalla (my favourite building in Rome)
Trajan's Market and Forum
The Palatine (especially getting into the house of Augustus...beautiful wall paintings)
Just wandering around in general, which is how we found the Theatre of Marcellus.

What is the best way to get around the city

Walk. The metro is great for getting into the city from the suburbs but currently useless for movement inside the city centre itself...but then it's not that big. Starting at the Colloseum, you can walk down to the Baths of Caracalla (via the side of the Palatine, past the Circus Maximus) in about 30 minutes.

how big of an issue will language be

It won't. The city is geared for tourism; most people working in bars, restaurants and shops speak English and all menus we found (both in the centre and the suburbs) are in English. Make the effort to learn a few of the basics and you'll be fine.

I will likely be there for a week, what are some of the essential sites outside the city, pompeii comes to mind, and possibly hadrians villa.

Well, I suppose Ostia is outside the city but it really is well worth the short train ride. We enjoyed it much more than Hadrian's Villa (which was, frankly, a bit of a disappointment as it lacked any sort of vitality. Very impressive but very sterile). Allow a whole day for just wandering thorugh it's streets. A wonderful place and mostly empty.

I also enjoyed spending a day walking down the Via Appia. We got the tourist bus down to the St Sebastian Catacombes and then walked down as far as the villa of the Quintilli at the 5th milestone, seeing the villa of Maxentius, the tomb of Cecilia Metella and lots of monuments along the way.

Pompeii is possible as a daytrip. There's a fast train from Rome to Naples which takes about an hour, then you can get the local train from Naples to Pompeii, about another hour I suppose.
However, unless you're really, really certain that you'll never go back, I wouldn't do it. Pompeii needs more than a day to do it justice. Go to Herculaneum instead. Much closer to Naples than Pompeii, in better overall condition (but then it wasn't bombed during WWII) and it only takes 4-5 hours to walk around. Less crowded too.

It's really worth planning a seperate trip to the region though. Pompeii is, like I said, worth at least two days of your time, Herculanium is brilliant and then there are the smaller sites (the clifftop villas of Stabiae, the Villa of Popaea at Oplontis etc) as well as Naples Museum...you need a week in the region really.