Rome and Lazio – Part 1
Rome is the most fascinating city in Italy, which makes it arguably the most fascinating city in the world. An ancient place packed with the relics of over two thousand years of inhabitation, you could spend a month here and still only scratch the surface. Yet it’s so much more than an open-air museum: its culture, its food, its people make up a modern, vibrant city that would be worthy of a visit irrespective of its past. As a historic centre, it is special enough; as a contemporary European capital, it is utterly unique.
Evenly placed between north and south, Rome is in the perfect position to be the Italian capital. The former heart of the mighty Roman Empire, and still the home of the papacy, the city is seen as a place somewhat apart from the rest of the country, the home of politicians and bureacrats. For the traveller, of course, this is much less evident than the sheer weight of history that the city supports. There are of course Rome’s classical features, most visibly the Colosseum, and the Forum and Palatine Hill; but beyond these there’s an almost uninterrupted sequence of monuments – from early Christian basilicas and Romanesque churches to Renaissance palaces and the fountains and churches of the Baroque period, which perhaps more than any other era has determined the look of the city today. There is the modern epoch, too, from the ponderous Neoclassical architecture of the post-Unification period to prestige projects like Zaha Hadid’s newly opened MAXXI exhibition space. And these various eras crowd in on one another to an almost overwhelming degree: there are medieval churches atop ancient basilicas above Roman palaces; houses and apartment blocks that incorporate fragments of eroded Roman columns, carvings and inscriptions; roads and piazzas which follow the lines of ancient amphitheatres and stadiums.
Beyond Rome, the region of Lazio inevitably pales in comparison, but there is plenty to draw you there, not least the landscape, which varies from the green hills and lakes of the northern reaches to the drier, more mountainous south. It’s a relatively poor region, its lack of identity the butt of a number of Italian jokes, but it’s the closest you’ll get to the feel of the Italian south without catching the train to Naples. Much of the area can be easily seen on a day-trip from the capital, primarily the ancient sites of Ostia Antica and the various attractions of Tivoli. Further afield, in northern Lazio, the Etruscan sites of Tarquinia and Cerveteri provide the most obvious tourist focus, and are again just about visitable on a day-trip, but you’d do better to use the pleasant provincial town of Viterbo as a base. Romans, meanwhile, head out at weekends to soak up the gentle beauty of lakes Bracciano, Vico and Bolsena. The south arguably holds Lazio’s most appealing enclaves. The coast is home to unpretentious resorts like Terracina and Sperlonga; and the island of Ponza, further down the coast, is – out of season at least – one of the most alluring spots on the entire western seaboard.
Highlights
Pantheon The most complete ancient Roman structure in the city.
Capitoline Museums The august and impressive home of some of Rome’s finest ancient sculpture and paintings.
Colosseum Rome’s best-known and most impressive monument.
Galleria Borghese One of the city’s finest art galleries – and home to the cream of the work of the city’s favourite sculptor, Bernini.
Vatican Museums Quite simply the largest and richest collection of art in the world.
Ostia Antica The old port of Rome is one of the best-preserved and most intriguing ancient sites in the country.
Tivoli The site of Hadrian’s villa, as well as the splendid landscaped gardens of Villa d’Este.
Rome
You won’t enjoy Rome if you spend your time trying to tick off sights. However, there are some places that it would be a pity to leave the city without seeing. The Vatican is perhaps the most obvious one, most notably St Peter’s and the amazing stock of loot in the Vatican Museums; and the star attractions of the ancient city – the Forum and Palatine, the Colosseum – are worth a day or two in their own right. There are also the churches, fountains and works of art from the period that can be said to most define Rome, the Baroque, and in particular the works of Borromini and Bernini, whose efforts compete for space and attention throughout the city. Bernini was responsible for the Fountain of the Four Rivers in the city’s most famous square, Piazza Navona, among other things; but arguably his best sculptural work is in the Galleria Borghese, or in various churches, like his statue of St Theresa in Santa Maria della Vittoria. Borromini, his great rival at the time, built the churches of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and Sant’Ivo, both buildings intricately squeezed into small sites – Borromini’s trademark. Other great palaces are themselves treasure-troves of great art, like the Doria Pamphilj and Palazzo Barberini; and there are some unmissable museums, like the galleries of the Capitoline, and the main collections of the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Palazzo Altemps and Palazzo Massimo, all of which hold staggering collections of the cream of the city’s ancient art and sculpture. And finally there’s the city itself: stroll through the centro storico in the early morning, through Trastevere at sunset, or gaze down at the roofs and domes from the Janiculum Hill on a clear day, and you’ll quickly realize that there’s no place in Italy like it.
Roman food and wine
Roman cooking is traditionally dominated by the earthy cuisine of the working classes, with a little influence from the city’s centuries-old Jewish population thrown in. Although you’ll find all sorts of pasta served in Roman restaurants, spaghetti is common, as is the local speciality of bucatini or thick-cut hollow spaghetti (sometimes called tonarelli), served cacio e pepe (with pecorino and ground black pepper), alla carbonara (with beaten eggs, cubes of pan-fried bacon, and pecorino or parmesan), alla gricia (with pecorino and bacon), all’amatriciana (with tomato and bacon) and alle vongole (with baby clams).
Fish features most frequently in Rome as salt cod – baccalà – best eaten Jewish-style, deep-fried. Offal is also key, and although it has been ousted from many of the more refined city-centre restaurants, you’ll still find it on the menus of more traditional places, especially those in Testaccio. Most favoured is pajata, the intestines of an unweaned calf. Look out, too, for coda alla vaccinara, oxtail stewed in a rich sauce of tomato and celery; abbacchio, milk-fed lamb roasted to melting tenderness with rosemary, sage and garlic; abbachio scottadito, grilled lamb chops eaten with the fingers; and saltimbocca alla romana, thin slices of veal cooked with a slice of prosciutto and sage on top. Artichokes (carciofi) are the quintessential Roman vegetable, served alla romana (stuffed with garlic and mint and stewed) and in all their unadulterated glory as alla giudea – flattened and deep-fried in olive oil. Another not-to-be-missed side dish is fiori di zucca – batter-fried courgette blossom, stuffed with mozzarella and a sliver of marinated anchovy. Roman pizza has a thin crust and is best when baked in a wood-fired oven (forno a legna), but you can also find lots of great pizza by the slice (pizza al taglio). Wine comes mainly from the Castelli Romani (most famously Frascati) to the south, and from around Montefiascone (Est! Est! Est!) in the north. Both are basic, straightforward whites, great for sunny lunchtimes or as an evening aperitivo.
Arrival
Rome has two airports: Leonardo da Vinci, better known as Fiumicino, which handles the majority of scheduled flights, and Ciampino, where you’ll probably arrive if you’re travelling with one of the low-cost airlines. Fiumicino is linked to the centre of Rome by direct trains, which take thirty minutes to get to Termini and cost €11; services begin at 6.36am, leaving every thirty minutes until 11.36pm. Alternatively, there are slower trains every 15 minutes to Ostiense and Tiburtina stations (tickets €5.50), on the edge of the city centre, which are also stops on Rome’s metro. From Ciampino, Terravision (www.terravision.eu) and SIT Bus (www.sitbusshuttle.it) run buses every half-hour to Termini for €8 return. They pull up on Via Marsala; otherwise, ATRAL buses (www.atral-lazio.com) run to Via Giolitti, on the other side of Termini, every hour (€4.50); all services take about 45 minutes. If you don’t want to go to Termini, and are staying near a metro stop on the A line (near the Spanish Steps or Via Veneto areas, for example), you could take an ATRAL bus (€1.20) from the airport to Anagnina metro station at the end of metro Line A, and take a metro from there to your destination (20min; €1). There’s a fixed price for taxis to the city centre (from Fiumicino €40, from Ciampino €30); the journey time for both is thirty to forty minutes. Information on both airports is available at 06.65951 and www.adr.it.
Travelling by train from most places in Italy, or indeed Europe, you arrive at Termini station, centrally placed for all parts of the city and meeting-point of the two metro lines and many city-bus routes. There are left-luggage facilities here, on the lower level by platform 24 (daily 6am–midnight; €3.80/5hr, then €0.60/hr). As for other train stations in Rome, Tiburtina is a stop for some north–south intercity trains; selected routes around Lazio are handled by the Regionali platforms of Termini station (a five-minute walk beyond the end of the regular platforms); and there’s also the Roma-Nord line station on Piazzale Flaminio, which runs to Viterbo.
Arriving by bus can leave you in any one of a number of places around the city. The main station for buses from outside the Rome area is Tiburtina. Others include Ponte Mammolo (trains from Tivoli and Subiaco); Lepanto (Cerveteri, Civitavecchia, Bracciano area); EUR Fermi (Nettuno, Anzio, southern Lazio coast); Anagnina (Castelli Romani); Saxa Rubra (Viterbo and around). All of these stations are on a metro line, except Saxa Rubra, which is on the Roma-Nord train line, connected every fifteen minutes with Piazzale Flaminio.
Finally, coming into the city by car can be confusing and isn’t advisable unless you’re used to driving in Italy and know where you are going to park. If you are coming from the north on the A1 highway take the exit “Roma Nord”; from the south, take the “Roma Est” exit. Both lead you to the Grande Raccordo Anulare (GRA), which circles the city and is connected with all of the major arteries into the city centre – Via Cassia from the north, Via Salaria from the northeast, Via Tiburtina or Via Nomentana from the east, Via Appia Nuova and the Pontina from the south, Via Prenestina and Via Casilina or Via Cristoforo Colombo from the southeast, and Via Aurelia from the northwest.
Roman history in brief
Rome’s early history is interwoven with legend. Rea Silvia, a vestal virgin and daughter of a local king, Numitor, had twin sons – the product, she alleged, of a rape by Mars. The two boys were abandoned and found by a wolf, who nursed them until their adoption by a shepherd. He named them Romulus and Remus, and they became leaders of the community and later laid out the boundaries of the city on the Palatine Hill. Before long it became apparent that there was only room for one ruler, and they quarrelled, Romulus killing Remus and becoming in 753 BC the city’s first monarch, to be followed by six further kings.
The Roman Republic and Empire
Rome as a kingdom lasted until about 507 BC, when the people rose up against the tyrannical King Tarquinius and established a Republic. The city prospered, growing greatly in size and subduing the various tribes of the surrounding areas: the Etruscans to the north, the Sabines to the east, the Samnites to the south. By the time it had fought and won the third Punic War against its principal rival, Carthage, in 146 BC, it had become the dominant power in the Mediterranean.
The history of the Republic was, however, also one of internal strife, marked by factional fighting among the patrician ruling classes, and the ordinary people, or plebeians, enjoying little more justice than they had under the Roman monarchs. This all came to a head in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar, having proclaimed himself dictator, was murdered by conspirators concerned at the growing concentration of power into one man’s hands. A brief period of turmoil ensued, giving way, in 27 BC, to the founding of the Empire under Augustus – a triumph for the new democrats over the old guard. Augustus heaved Rome into the imperial era, building arches, theatres and monuments of a magnificence suited to the capital of an expanding empire. Under Augustus, and his successors, the city swelled to a population of a million or more, its people housed in cramped apartment blocks or insulae; crime in the city was rife, and the traffic problem apparently on a par with today’s, leading one contemporary writer to complain that the din on the streets made it impossible to get a good night’s sleep. But it was a time of peace and prosperity too, with the empire’s borders being ever more extended, reaching their maximum limits under the Emperor Trajan, who died in 117 AD. This period constitutes the heyday of the Roman Empire, a time that the historian Gibbon called “the happiest times in the history of humanity”.
The decline of Rome is hard to date precisely, but it could be said to have started with the Emperor Diocletian, who assumed power in 284 and divided the empire into two parts, East and West. The first Christian emperor, Constantine, shifted the seat of power to Byzantium in 330, and Rome’s period as capital of the world was over; the wealthier members of the population moved east and a series of invasions by Goths in 410 and Vandals about forty years later served only to quicken the city’s ruin. By the sixth century Rome was a devastated and infection-ridden shadow of its former self.
The papal city
After the fall of the empire, the pope – based in Rome owing to the fact that St Peter (the Apostle and first pope) was martyred here in 64 AD – became the temporal ruler over much of Italy, and it was the papacy, under Pope Gregory I (“the Great”) in 590, that rescued Rome from its demise. By sending missions all over Europe to spread the word of the Church and publicize its holy relics, he drew pilgrims, and their money, back to the city, in time making the papacy the natural authority in Rome. The pope took the name “Pontifex Maximus” after the title of the high priest of classical times (literally “the keeper of the bridges”, which were vital to the city’s well-being). The crowning a couple of centuries later of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, with dominions spread Europe-wide but answerable to the pope, intensified the city’s revival, and the pope and city became recognized as head of the Christian world.
As time went on, power gradually became concentrated in a handful of families, who swapped the top jobs, including the papacy itself, between them. Under the burgeoning power of the pope, the city began to take on a new aspect: churches were built, the city’s pagan monuments rediscovered and preserved, and artists began to arrive in Rome to work on commissions for the latest pope, who would invariably try to outdo his predecessor’s efforts with ever more glorious buildings and works of art. This process reached a head during the Renaissance; Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo all worked in the city throughout their careers, and the reigns of Pope Julius II and his successor, Leo X, were something of a golden age – the city was once again the centre of cultural and artistic life. However, in 1527 all this was brought abruptly to an end, when the armies of the Habsburg monarch Charles V swept into the city, occupying it for a year, while Pope Clement VII cowered in the Castel Sant’Angelo.
The ensuing years were ones of yet more restoration, and perhaps because of this it’s the seventeenth century that has left the most tangible impression on Rome today, the vigour of the Counter-Reformation throwing up huge sensational monuments like the Gesù church that were designed to confound the scepticism of the new Protestant thinking. This period also saw the completion of St Peter’s under Paul V, and the ascendancy of Gian Lorenzo Bernini as the city’s principal architect and sculptor. The eighteenth century witnessed the decline of the papacy as a political force, a phenomenon marked by the seventeen-year occupation of the city starting in 1798 by Napoleon, after which papal rule was restored.
The post-Unification city
Thirty-four years later a pro-Unification caucus under Mazzini declared the city a republic but was soon chased out, and Rome had to wait until troops stormed the walls in 1870 to join the unified country – symbolically the most important part of the Italian peninsula to do so. “Roma o morte”, Garibaldi had cried, and he wasted no time in declaring the city the capital of the new kingdom – under Vittorio Emanuele II – and confining the by now quite powerless pontiff, Pius IX, to the Vatican until agreement was reached on a way to coexist. The Piemontese rulers of the new kingdom set about building a city fit to govern from, cutting new streets through Rome’s central core (Via Nazionale, Via del Tritone) and constructing grandiose buildings like the Altar of the Nation. Mussolini took over in 1922, and in 1929 signed the Lateran Pact with Pope Pius XI, a compromise which forced the Vatican to accept the new Italian state and in return recognized the Vatican City as sovereign territory, independent of Italy, together with the key basilicas and papal palaces in Rome – these remain technically independent of Italy to this day.
The contemporary city
During World War II, Mussolini famously made Rome his centre of operations until his resignation as leader in July 1943. The city was eventually liberated by Allied forces in June 1944. The Italian republic since then has been a mixed affair, changing its government (if not its leaders) every few months until a series of scandals forced the old guard from office. Since then things have continued in much the same vein, with the city symbolizing, to the rest of the country at least, the inertia of their nation’s government. In spite of this the city’s growth has been phenomenal, its population soaring to getting on for four million, with a marked increase in its immigrant numbers. However, the city is looking sprucer, and more vibrant, than it has done for some time, and there are even plans afoot to deal with the city centre’s chronic traffic problem, with the construction of a third metro line well under way. In short, the city is more cosmopolitan (and more expensive) than ever before, and despite the crowds, which seem to increase every year, there’s never been a better time to visit.
City transport
The best way to get around the centre of Rome is to walk. However, its ATAC-run public transport system, incorporating buses, metros and trams – is cheap, reliable and as quick as the clogged streets allow. There’s an information office in the centre of Piazza dei Cinquecento outside Termini station; www.atac.roma.it has information in English and a route planner. The metro operates from 5.30am to 11.30pm (till 12.30am on Saturdays). Its two lines, crossing at Termini, only have a handful of stops in the city centre; a third line, Line C, is scheduled for completion by 2015. Buses run till around midnight, when a network of nightbuses comes into service, accessing most parts of the city and operating until about 5am.
The easiest way to get a taxi is to find the nearest taxi stand (fermata dei taxi) – central ones include Termini, Piazza Venezia, Largo Argentina, Piazza San Silvestro, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Barberini. Alternatively, you can simply call a taxi (06.3570, 06.4157, 06.6645, 06.4994 or 06.5551), but bear in mind that these usually cost more, as the meter starts ticking the moment the taxi is dispatched to collect you. A journey from one side of the city centre to the other should cost no more than €10, or around €15 on Sunday or at night. All taxis carry a rate card in English giving the current tariff.
Finally, you could tour the city by bike using the city’s bike-sharing scheme (www.roma-n-bike.com). You sign up at one of ten metro stations (including Termini and Spagna, near the Spanish Steps), and pay €10; after this it costs just €0.50 an hour to use the city’s bikes and there are enough drop-off points around town to make it convenient.
Tickets and travel cards
Flat-fare tickets (known as BIT) on all forms of transport currently cost €1 each and are good for any number of bus and tram rides and one metro ride within 75 minutes of validating them – bus tickets should be stamped in machines on board the bus. You can buy tickets from tabacchi, newsstands and ticket machines located in all metro stations and at major bus stops. If you’re using transport extensively it’s worth getting a day pass (BIG) for €4, a three-day pass (BTI) for €11, or a seven-day pass (CIS) for €16. There are hefty fines for fare-dodging.
Useful transport routes
Buses
#23 Piazzale Clodio–Piazza Risorgimento–Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II–Ponte Garibaldi–Via Marmorata–Piazzale Ostiense–Centrale Montemartini–Basilica di S. Paolo.
#40 (Express) Termini–Via Nazionale–Piazza Venezia–Largo Argentina–Corso Vittorio Emanuele II–Piazza Pia.
#64 Termini–Piazza della Repubblica–Via Nazionale–Piazza Venezia–Largo Argentina–Corso Vittorio Emanuele II–S. Pietro.
#175 Termini–Piazza Barberini–Via del Corso–Piazza Venezia–Colosseum–Circus Maximus–Aventine–Stazione Ostiense.
#492 Stazione Tiburtina–Piazzale Verano–Termini–Piazza Barberini–Via del Corso–Piazza Venezia–Largo Argentina–Corso Rinascimento–Piazza Cavour–Piazza Risorgimento–Cipro (Vatican Museums).
#660 Largo Colli Albani–Via Appia Nuova–Via Appia Antica.
#714 Termini–Santa Maria Maggiore–Via Merulana–San Giovanni in Laterano–Viale Terme di Caracalla–EUR.
#910 Termini–Piazza della Repubblica–Via Pinciana (Villa Borghese)–Piazza Euclide–Palazzetto dello Sport (EUR)–Piazza Mancini.
Minibuses
Minibuses negotiate circular routes through the narrow streets of Rome’s centre.
#116 Porta Pinciana–Via Veneto–Via del Tritone–Piazza di Spagna–Piazza San Silvestro–Corso Rinascimento–Campo de’ Fiori–Piazza Farnese–Lungotevere Sangallo–Terminal Gianicolo.
#117 San Giovanni in Laterano–Piazza Celimontana–Via Due Macelli–Via del Babuino–Piazza del Popolo–Via del Corso–Piazza Venezia–Via Nazionale–Via dei Serpenti–Colosseum–Via Labicana.
#119 Piazza del Popolo–Via del Corso–Piazza Venezia–Largo Argentina–Via del Tritone–Piazza Barberini–Via Veneto–Porta Pinciana–Piazza Barberini–Piazza di Spagna–Via del Babuino–Piazza del Popolo.
Trams
#2 Piazzale Flaminio–Via Flaminia–Viale Tiziano–MAXXI–Piazza Mancini.
#3 Stazione Trastevere–Via Marmorata–Piramide–Circo Massimo–Colosseum–San Giovanni–San Lorenzo–Via Nomentana–Parioli–Viale Belle Arti.
#8 Casaletto–Stazione Trastevere–Piazza Mastai–Viale Trastevere–Largo Argentina.
#14 Termini–Piazza Vittorio Emanuele–Porta Maggiore–Prenestina (Pigneto).
#19 Porto Maggiore–Piazzale Verano–Viale Regina Margherita–Viale Belle Arti–Via Flaminia–Ottaviano–Piazza Risorgimento.
Tourist buses
There are several operators offering hop-on-hop-off circuits of the city with guided commentary, but the ATAC-run #110 bus is the best and most frequent (800.281.281, www.trambusopen.com). It leaves from Termini station and stops at all the major sights, including Piazza di Spagna, Castel Sant’Angelo and the Vatican. The whole round trip takes about two hours. In summer, departures are every twenty minutes from 8.30am until 8.30pm daily, including holidays and Sundays. It also offers night-time tours of the city, starting at Piazza Venezia (9.45pm & 10.15pm). Tickets cost €20 and are valid 24hr; tickets for the night tours cost €12. Consider also the Archeobus (same contact details), which links some of the most compelling ancient sights, including the monuments on and around the Via Appia Antica. Buses run daily every half-hour from 8.30am until 4.30pm and cost €15. You can also buy a combined ticket with bus #110 for €30, valid 48hr.
Information
There’s an official tourist office at Fiumicino Terminal 2 (daily 9am–6.30pm) and information kiosks in key locations around the city centre (daily 9.30am–7.30pm; (see Information kiosks). You could also try the privately run Enjoy Rome, Via Marghera 8/A (Mon–Fri 8.30am–5pm, Sat 8.30am–2pm; 06.445.1843, www.enjoyrome.com), whose friendly English-speaking staff hand out lots of free information; they also operate a free room-finding service, organize tours, have a left-luggage service for customers, and run shuttle buses to Fiumicino and Ciampino.
The city’s best source of listings is the weekly Romac’è (€1), which has a helpful section in English giving information on tours, clubs, restaurants, services and weekly events and a decent website – www.romace.it. The twice-monthly English expat magazine, Wanted in Rome (€0.75) – www.wantedinrome.com – is also a useful source, especially if you’re looking for an apartment or work. Both are available at most newsstands. Those with a bit of Italian should pick up a copy of the Thursday edition of La Repubblica, which includes the “Trova Roma” supplement, another handy guide to current offerings. And www.inromenow.com and www.eternallycool.net are both informative Rome-focused websites.
Museum passes
The Roma Pass (06.06.08, www.romapass.it) costs €23 and is valid for 3 days. Available from major sights and tourist information kiosks, it entitles you to travel for free on buses, trams and the metro, gives you free admission to two and reduced entry to quite a few of the city’s major sights and museums, and, perhaps most importantly, the opportunity not to queue at the first two sights you visit – quite a lifesaver at the Colosseum and one or two others.
You can visit the four museums that make up the Museo Nazionale Romano on one ticket, valid for seven days, which costs €7 and is available from each location – Palazzo Altemps, Palazzo Massimo, Crypta Balbi and the Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano.
Accommodation
There’s plenty of accommodation in Rome, and overall the choice of hotels in the city centre has improved a lot over recent years, with lots of new boutique hotels and contemporary B&Bs opening up. But it’s always worth booking in advance, especially when the city is at its busiest – from Easter to the end of October, and over Christmas. If you haven’t booked, try Enjoy Rome. The accommodation listings below are marked on the maps Rome, Central Rome and Centro Storico.
Information kiosks
Castel Sant’Angelo (Piazza Pia); Imperial Forums (Piazza del Tempio della Pace); Piazza Navona (Piazza delle Cinque Lune); San Giovanni (Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano); Santa Maria Maggiore (Via dell’Olmata); Termini station (Piazza dei Cinquecento); Trastevere (Piazza Sonnino); Trevi Fountain (Via Minghetti); Via del Corso (Largo Goldoni); Via Nazionale (Palazzo delle Esposizioni).
Hotels
Many of the city’s cheapest places are located close to Termini station, but this isn’t the nicest part of town and there are plenty of moderately priced places in the centro storico or around Campo de’ Fiori. However, you’ll need to book well in advance to be sure of a room. The Tridente, Trevi and the Quirinale Hill, towards Via Veneto and around the Spanish Steps, is home to more upscale accommodation, although there are a few affordable options here too. Consider also staying across the river in Prati, a pleasant neighbourhood, nicely distanced from the hubbub of the city centre proper, and handy for the Vatican, or in lively Trastevere, also on the west side of the river but an easy walk into the centre.
Centro Storico and Campo de’ Fiori
Campo de’ Fiori Via del Biscione 6 06.6880.6865, www.hotelcampodefiori.com. A friendly place in a nice location with 23 individually designed rooms. The sixth-floor roof terrace has great views, and the hotel also owns a number of small apartments nearby. €151–200
Due Torri Vicolo del Leonetto 23 06.6880.6956, www.hotelduetorriroma.com. This little hotel was once a residence for cardinals, and later served as a brothel. Completely remodelled, it retains a homely feel and some of its rooms have lovely rooftop views. A good location just north of Piazza Navona. €151–200
Navona Via dei Sediari 8 06.686.4203, www.hotelnavona.com. Completely renovated pensione-turned-hotel housed in a building built on the remains of the ancient Roman baths of Agrippa. It’s pretty welcoming, run by a friendly Italian-Australian, and the rooms are decent; plus it’s in a good position close to Piazza Navona. €121–150
Portoghesi Via dei Portoghesi 1 06.686.4231, www.hotelportoghesiroma.com. Decent, well-equipped if slightly characterless modern rooms, a stone’s throw from most centro storico attractions. Breakfast is served on the roof terrace. €151–200
Santa Chiara Via Santa Chiara 21 06.687.2979, www.albergosantachiara.com. A friendly hotel in a great location, on a quiet piazza behind the Pantheon. The rooms are nicer than the bland lobby, and some overlook the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. €201–250
Smeraldo Vicolo dei Chiodaroli 9 06.687.5929, www.smeraldoroma.com. Clean and comfortable hotel with a modern if rather bland interior and rooms with shiny new baths, televisions and a/c. The terrace and some rooms have lovely views over Rome’s rooftops. Breakfast not included. €121–150
Sole Via del Biscione 76 06.6880.6873, www.solealbiscione.it. This place enjoys one of the best locations in the centre, and has been in the same family for generations. The rooms are simple but decent enough; it’s worth splashing out on one of the ones with the spectacular view of the nearby domes from the top-floor terrace. €121–150
Teatro Pace Via del Teatro Pace 33 06.687.9075, www.hotelteatropace.com. This beautifully restored palazzo, a few paces from Piazza Navona, has an impressive Baroque spiral staircase (no lift) and four floors of elegant rooms with original wood beams, floor-sweeping drapes and luxurious bathrooms. €201–250
Zanardelli Via G. Zanardelli 7 06.6821.1392, www.hotelnavona.com. Run by the same people as the Navona, this is the slightly more lavish alternative, just north of Piazza Navona, in a building which used to be a papal residence and has many original features. The rooms are quite elegant, with antique iron beds, silk-lined walls and modern amenities, but still decently priced. €151–200
The Tridente, Trevi and the Quirinale
Casa Howard Via Capo le Case 18 & Via Sistina 149 06.69922.4555, www.casahoward.com. Halfway between a boutique hotel and an upmarket pensione, the individually furnished if sometimes small rooms here are among Rome’s most stylish. The location is good too, between Piazza Barberini and the Spanish Steps. €201–250
Condotti Via Mario de’ Fiori 37 06.679.4661, www.condottigrouphotels.com. A cosy and inviting hotel with other locations nearby, and comfortable, well-equipped rooms. A bit devoid of personality, although this is somewhat compensated for by the welcoming staff. €151–200
Daphne Via di San Basilio 55 & Via degli Avignonesi 20 06.8745.0087, www.daphne-rome.com. A welcoming pensione run by an American woman and her Roman husband. Bright, nicely renovated modern rooms in two good locations either side of Piazza Barberini, and as much advice as you need on how to spend your time in Rome. Some rooms have shared bathrooms, others are en suite. €151–200
De Russie Via del Babuino 9 06.328.881, www.hotelderussie.it. Coolly elegant and understated, this is the abode of choice for visiting movie stars and hip travellers spending someone else’s money. €401 and over
Eva’s Rooms Via dei due Macelli 31 06.6919.0078, www.evasrooms.com. Large and cosily furnished rooms are the hallmark of this B&B, just a 5-minute walk from the Spanish Steps. Some of the rooms could do with a lick of paint, but for the price the location is great. €121–150
Homs Via della Vite 71–72 06.679.2976, www.hotelhoms.it. In the heart of the Spanish Steps neighbourhood, this small four-star boasts a roof terrace with marvellous views, cosy rooms and a very friendly atmosphere – something that’s not always guaranteed in the hotels of this ritzy neighbourhood. €151–200
Locarno Via della Penna 22 06.361.0841, www.hotellocarno.com. No two rooms are alike at the Locarno, filled with antiques of various periods, and the atmospheric bar on some nights can attract a cast of hundreds. Literati, the film world, artists and those that could afford to pay much more relish the hotel’s quirkiness and genteel charm. €201–250
Modigliani Via della Purificazione 42 06.4281.5226, www.hotelmodigliani.com. A young artist couple run this modern hotel on a quiet street just off Piazza Barberini. Rooms are tasteful and comfortable, and all have a/c. €151–200
The Esquline, Monti and Termini
Alpi Via Castelfidardo 84 06.444.1235, www.hotelalpi.com. One of the more peaceful yet convenient options close to Termini, recently renovated, and within easy walking distance of the station. Pleasant, if somewhat small, rooms with bathrooms, and a great buffet breakfast – better than you would normally expect in a hotel of this category. €151–200
Artorius Via del Boschetto 13 06.482.1196, www.hotelartorius.com. A great choice if you want to stay in the heart of Monti, with just ten rooms decorated in classic style. There’s also a pleasant courtyard for breakfast, or for drinks after dark. €151–200
The Beehive Via Marghera 8 06.4470.4553, www.the-beehive.com. Cheap double rooms, all with shared bathroom, in this pleasant hotel near Termini run by an American couple. There are also dorm beds for €25 or you can self-cater in three nearby apartments for €35 a head. There’s also free internet access and a restaurant serving vegetarian food all day. €61–90
Des Artistes Via Villafranca 20 06.445.4365, www.hoteldesartistes.com. One of the better hotels in the Termini area. Exceptionally good value, spotlessly clean, and with a wide range of rooms both with and without en-suite facilities, plus dorm beds for around €25. Eat breakfast or recover from a long day of sightseeing on the breezy roof terrace. €151–200
Grifo Via del Boschetto 144 06.487.1395, www.hotelgrifo.com. Right in the heart of the Monti district, this hotel has simple, tasteful rooms, and a roof terrace which overlooks the scene of medieval Rome at its most picturesque. €201–250
Suite Dreams Via Modena 5 06.4891.3907, www.suitedreams.it. Simple yet stylish rooms with good-sized bathrooms, and nice details like a DVD library for guests’ use. Good value. €151–200
Villa delle Rose Via Vicenza 5 06.445.1788, www.villadellerose.it. An aristocratic villa just a block from Termini with slightly shabby but characterful rooms and a warm welcome from the staff. €91–120
The Celian Hill, San Giovanni and the Aventine
Lancelot Via Capo d’Africa 47 06.7045.0615, www.lancelothotel.com. Just two minutes from the Colosseum, this friendly family-run hotel has rooms with oriental carpets and an attractive bar. Wi-fi is free, as is the lobby internet point. Dinner is good too, served at intimate round tables with other guests for €25 a head. They also have (limited) parking for €10. €151–200
Sant’Anselmo Piazza Sant’Anselmo 2 06.570.057, www.aventinohotels.com. One of the most peaceful places you could choose, this is one of a chain of Aventine Hill hotels. The rooms are beautifully furnished (each with a different theme) and have been fairly recently renovated. Parking is free. €151–200
Trastevere and Prati
Amalia Via Germanico 66 06.3972.3356, www.hotelamalia.com. Located on an attractive corner not far from the Vatican, this is an extremely good value option, with four-star amenities at three-star prices. €151–200
Cisterna Via della Cisterna 7–9 06.581.7212, www.cisternahotel.it. A friendly three-star bang in the middle of Trastevere. Nineteen rooms, some with colourful tiled floors and wood-beamed ceilings, and all with private bathrooms. €91–120
La Rovere Vicolo San Onofrio 4–5 06.6880.6739, www.hotellarovere.com. Just across the bridge from Piazza Navona, this small hotel is tucked quietly away from all the bustle and offers a terrace garden and antique-filled setting for its guests to relax in. €121–150
Santa Maria Vicolo del Piede 2 06.589.4626, www.hotelsantamaria.info. Just steps from Piazza Santa Maria in the heart of Trastevere, the rooms of this small three-star surround an orange-tree-filled garden, giving the feel of a place far removed from the city. €151–200
Hostels
Alessandro Palace Via Vicenza 42 06.446.1958, www.hostelsalessandro.com. This place has been voted one of the top hostels in Europe, and it sparkles with creative style. Pluses include no lock-out or curfew, a good bar with free pizza every night, internet access and satellite TV. A few blocks away is Alessandro Downtown, Via C. Cattaneo 23 (06.4434.0147). Dorms €25–35, rooms €91–120
Ostello del Foro Italico Viale delle Olimpiadi 61 06.323.6267, www.ostellodiroma.it. Rome’s official HI hostel (non-members can join here), though not particularly central or easy to get to from Termini – take bus #32, #224 or #280 and ask the driver for the “ostello”. You can call ahead to check out availability, but they won’t take phone bookings. Breakfast included. Dorms €16.
Ottaviano Via Ottaviano 6 06.3973.8138, www.pensioneottaviano.com. This simple hostel near the Vatican is very popular; book well in advance. Dorms €25–33.
YWCA Via C. Balbo 4 06.488.0460. Open to women and men, and conveniently situated just a 10-minute walk from Termini, although the market outside may get you up earlier than you might want. Midnight curfew. Dorms €28, rooms €61–90
Campsites
Camping Flaminio Via Flaminia Nuova 821 06.333.2604, www.campingflaminio.it. 8km north of the centre, this site also has bungalows, a pool and a restaurant. To get there, either take the Roma-Nord service from Piazzale Flaminio to Due Ponti, or take bus #910 to Piazza Mancini and transfer to bus #200 (ask the driver to drop you at the “fermata più vicina al campeggio”). March–Oct.
Camping Tiber Km1400, Via Tiberina 06.3361.0733, www.campingtiber.com. Right beside the Tiber, quiet, spacious and friendly, with a bar-pizzeria, a pool and hot showers, plus bungalows. It has a free shuttle service (every 30min 8am–11pm) to and from nearby Prima Porta station, where you can catch the Roma-Nord train service to Piazzale Flaminio (about 20min). March–Oct.
The City
Rome’s city centre is divided neatly into distinct blocks. The warren of streets that makes up the centro storico occupies the hook of land on the left bank of the River Tiber, bordered to the east by Via del Corso and to the north and south by water. From here Rome’s central core spreads south and east: down towards Campo de’ Fiori; across Via del Corso to the major shopping streets and alleys around the Spanish Steps; to the major sites of the ancient city to the south; and to the expanse of the Villa Borghese park to the north. The left bank of the river is a little more distanced from the main hum of the city centre, home to the Vatican and St Peter’s, and, to the south of these, Trastevere – even in ancient times a distinct entity from the city proper, although nowadays as much of a focus for tourists as anywhere, especially at night.
The centro storico
Immediately north of Piazza Venezia is the real heart of Rome – the centro storico or historic centre, which makes up most of the triangular knob of land that bulges into a bend in the Tiber. This area, known in ancient Roman times as the Campus Martius, was outside the ancient city centre, a low-lying area that was mostly given over to barracks and sporting arenas, together with several temples, including the Pantheon. Later it became the heart of the Renaissance city, and nowadays it’s the part of the town that is densest in interest, an unruly knot of narrow streets and alleys that holds some of the best of Rome’s classical and Baroque heritage and its most vivacious street- and nightlife. It’s here that most people find the Rome they have been looking for – a city of crumbling piazzas, Renaissance churches and fountains, blind alleys and streets humming with scooters and foot-traffic. Whichever direction you wander in there’s something to see; indeed it’s part of the appeal of the centre of Rome that even the most aimless ambling leads you past some breathlessly beautiful and historic spots.
Galleria Doria Pamphilj
North of Piazza Venezia, the first building on the left is the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, one of the city’s finest Rococo palaces. Inside, the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (daily 10am–5pm; €9, including audioguide; www.dopart.it/roma) is one of Rome’s best private late-Renaissance art collections. The Doria Pamphilj family still lives in part of the building, and you’re guided through the gallery and the state apartments beyond by way of a free audio tour narrated by the urbane Jonathan Pamphilj.
The picture gallery extends around the main courtyard, the paintings displayed in old-fashioned style, crammed in frame-to-frame, floor-to-ceiling. It has perhaps Rome’s best concentration of Dutch and Flemish paintings, with a rare Italian work by Brueghel the Elder showing a naval battle being fought outside Naples, a highly realistic portrait of two old men by Quinten Metsys and a Hans Memling Deposition, in the furthest rooms off the main gallery, as well as a further Metsys painting – the fabulously ugly Moneylenders and their Clients – in the main gallery, close by Annibale Carracci’s bucolic Flight into Egypt. Also in the rooms off the courtyard are three paintings by Caravaggio – Repentant Magdalene and John the Baptist, and his wonderful Rest on the Flight into Egypt – hanging near Salome with the head of St John, by Titian. The gallery’s most prized treasures, however, are in a small room on their own – a Bernini bust of the Pamphilj pope Innocent X and Velázquez’s famous, penetrating painting of the same man. All in all it’s a marvellous collection of work, displayed in a wonderfully appropriate setting.
Sant’Ignazio
The next left off Via del Corso after the palace leads into Piazza Sant’Ignazio, a lovely little square, laid out like a theatre set and dominated by the facade of the Jesuit church of Sant’Ignazio (daily 7.30am–12.30pm & 3–7.15pm). The saint isn’t actually buried here; appropriately, for the founder of the Jesuit order, he’s in the Gesù church a little way south. It’s a spacious structure, built during the late seventeeth century, and worth visiting for the marvellous Baroque ceiling by Andrea Pozzo showing the entry of St Ignatius into paradise, a spectacular work that employs sledgehammer trompe l’oeil effects, notably in the mock cupola painted into the dome of the crossing. Stand on the disc in the centre of the nave, the focal point for the ingenious rendering of perspective: figures in various states of action and repose, conversation and silence, fix you with stares from their classical pediment.
The Pantheon
Via del Seminario leads down to Piazza della Rotonda, where the main focus of interest is the Pantheon (Mon–Sat 8.30am–7.30pm, Sun 9am–6pm; free), easily the most complete ancient Roman structure in the city and, along with the Colosseum, visually the most impressive. Though originally a temple that formed part of Marcus Agrippa’s redesign of the Campus Martius in around 27 BC – hence the inscription – it’s since been proved that the building was entirely rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian and finished around the year 125 AD. It’s a formidable architectural achievement even now: the diameter is precisely equal to its height (43m), the hole in the centre of the dome – from which shafts of sunlight descend to illuminate the musty interior – a full 9m across. Most impressively, there are no visible arches or vaults to hold the whole thing up; instead they’re sunk into the concrete of the walls of the building. It would have been richly decorated, the coffered ceiling heavily stuccoed and the niches filled with the statues of gods, but now, apart from its sheer size, the main things of interest are the tombs of two Italian kings, and the tomb of Raphael, between the second and third chapel on the left, with an inscription by the humanist bishop Pietro Bembo: “Living, great Nature feared he might outvie Her works, and dying, fears herself may die.” The same kind of sentiments might well have been reserved for the Pantheon itself.
Santa Maria sopra Minerva
There’s more artistic splendour on view behind the Pantheon, though Bernini’s Elephant Statue doesn’t really prepare you for the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva beyond. The statue is Bernini’s most endearing piece of work, if not his most characteristic: a cheery elephant trumpeting under the weight of the obelisk he carries on his back – a reference to Pope Alexander VII’s reign and supposed to illustrate the fact that strength should support wisdom. Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Mon–Sat 7am–7pm, Sun 8am–7pm) is Rome’s only Gothic church, and worth a look just for that. Built in the late thirteenth century on the ruins of a temple to Minerva, it’s also one of Rome’s art-treasure churches, crammed with the tombs and self-indulgences of wealthy Roman families. Of these, the Carafa chapel, in the south transept, is the best known, holding Filippino Lippi’s fresco of the Assumption, below which one painting shows a hopeful Carafa (the religious zealot, Pope Paul IV) being presented to the Virgin Mary by Thomas Aquinas; another depicts Aquinas confounding the heretics in the sight of two beautiful young boys – the future Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII. The lives of Leo and Clement come full circle in the church, where they are both buried and remembered by two very grand tombs either side of the high altar – Leo on the left, Clement on the right, close by which is the figure of Christ Bearing the Cross, a serene work that Michelangelo completed for the church in 1521.
Sant’Ivo
A few steps west of the Pantheon, on Corso del Rinascimento, the rather blank facade of the Palazzo della Sapienza cradles the church of Sant’Ivo (Sun 9am–noon) – from the outside at least, one of Rome’s most impressive churches, with a playful facade designed by Borromini. Though originally built for the Barberini pope, Urban VIII, the building actually spans the reign of three pontiffs. Each of the two small towers is topped with the weird pyramidal groupings that are the symbol of the Chigi family (representing the hills of Monti di Paschi di Siena), and the central cupola spirals helter-skelter to its zenith, crowned with flames that are supposed to represent the sting of the Barberini bee, their family symbol. The inside, too, is very cleverly designed, light and spacious given the small space the church is squeezed into, rising to the tall parabolic cupola.
San Luigi dei Francesi
A short walk from here, at the bottom of Via della Scrofa, the French national church of San Luigi dei Francesi (daily except Thurs afternoon 8.30am–12.30pm & 4–7pm) is worth a look, mainly for its works by Caravaggio. In the last chapel on the left are three paintings: The Calling of St Matthew, in which Christ points to Matthew, who is illuminated by a shaft of sunlight; The Inspiration of St Matthew, where Matthew is visited by an angel as he writes the Gospel; and The Martyrdom of St Matthew. Caravaggio’s first public commission, these paintings were actually rejected at first, partly on grounds of indecorum, and it took considerable reworking by the artist before they were finally accepted.
Piazza Navona
Just west of San Luigi dei Francesi lies Piazza Navona, Rome’s most famous square. Lined with cafés and restaurants, and often thronged with tourists, street artists and pigeons, it is as picturesque – and as vibrant, day and night – as any piazza in Italy. It takes its shape from the first-century-AD Stadium of Domitian, the principal venue of the athletic events and later chariot races that took place in the Campus Martius. Until the mid-fifteenth century the ruins of the arena were still here, overgrown and disused, but the square was given a facelift in the mid-seventeenth century by Pope Innocent X, who built most of the grandiose palaces that surround it and commissioned Borromini to design the facade of the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone on the piazza’s western side (Mon–Sat 9.30am–12.30pm & 4–7pm). The story goes that the 13-year-old St Agnes was stripped naked before the crowds in the stadium as punishment for refusing to marry, whereupon she miraculously grew hair to cover herself. The church, typically squeezed into the tightest of spaces by Borromini, is supposedly built on the spot where it all happened.
Opposite, the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, one of three that punctuate the square, is a masterpiece by Bernini, Borromini’s arch-rival. Each figure represents one of the four great rivers of the world – the Nile, Danube, Ganges and Plate – though only the horse, symbolizing the Danube, was actually carved by Bernini himself. It’s said that all the figures are shielding their eyes in horror from Borromini’s church facade (Bernini was disdainful of the less successful Borromini, and their rivalry is well documented), but the fountain had actually been completed before the facade was begun. The grand complexity of rock is topped with an Egyptian obelisk, brought here by Pope Innocent X from the Circus of Maxentius. Bernini also had a hand in the fountain at the southern end of the square, the so-called Fontana del Moro, designing the central figure of the Moor in what is another fantastically playful piece of work, surrounded by toothsome dolphins and other marine figures.
Museo di Roma
Overlooking the south side of Piazza Navona, the eighteenth-century Palazzo Braschi is the home of the Museo di Roma (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; €6.50), which has a permanent collection relating to the history of the city from the Middle Ages to the present day. The building itself is probably the main attraction – particularly the magnificent Sala Nobile where you enter, the main staircase, and one or two of the renovated rooms – but some of the paintings are of interest, showing views of the city during different eras, and frescoes from demolished palaces provide decent enough highlights.
Museo Barracco
Across the street from the Museo di Roma, the Museo Barracco, housed in another palace, the so-called Piccola Farnesina (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm, Sun 9am–1pm; €3), holds a small but high-quality collection of ancient sculpture that was donated to the city at the turn of the century by one Baron Barracco. There are some fine ancient Egyptian pieces and ceramics and statuary from classical Greece and Rome. Highlights include a head of the young Rameses II, next to a bust of an Egyptian priest, a Roman figure of an athlete from an ancient Greek original, and a highly realistic depiction of a bitch washing herself, from the fourth century BC.
Piazza Pasquino and Via del Governo Vecchio
The nearby triangular space of Piazza Pasquino is named after the small battered torso that still stands in the corner. Pasquino is perhaps the best known of Rome’s “talking statues” of the Middle Ages and Renaissance times, on which anonymous comments on the affairs of the day would be attached – comments that had a serious as well as a humorous intent, and gave us our word “pasquinade”. Via del Governo Vecchio leads west from here, and is home – along with the narrow streets around – to some of the centro storico’s liveliest restaurants and bars.
Palazzo Altemps
Just across the street from the north end of Piazza Navona, Piazza Sant’Apollinare is home to the beautifully restored Palazzo Altemps (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; €7, part of the Museo Nazionale Romano), and the cream of its collections of Roman statuary.
On the ground floor at the far end of the courtyard’s loggia is a statue of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, and, around the corner, a couple of heads of Zeus and Pluto, and a bust of Julia, the daughter of the Emperor Augustus. There are two almost identical statues of Apollo the Lyrist, a magnificent statue of Athena taming a serpent, pieced together from fragments found near the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and, in the far corner of the courtyard, a Dionysus with a satyr and panther, found on the Quirinale Hill. Upstairs you get a slightly better sense of the original building – some of the frescoes remain and the north loggia retains its original, late sixteenth-century decoration, simulating a vine-laden pergola. Among the objects on display there’s a fine statue of Hermes, a wonderful statue of a warrior at rest, and a charmingly sensitive portrayal of Orestes and Electra from the first century AD by a sculptor called Menelaus – his name is carved at the base of one of the figures. In a later room stands a colossal head of Hera, and – what some consider the highlight of the entire collection – the famous Ludovisi throne, embellished with a delicate relief portraying the birth of Aphrodite. Further on, the Fireplace Salon – whose huge fireplace is embellished with caryatids and lurking ibex, the symbol of the Altemps family – has the so-called Suicide of Galatian, apparently commissioned by Julius Caesar to adorn his Quirinal estate. At the other end of the room, an incredible sarcophagus depicts a battle between the Romans and barbarians in graphic, almost viscerally sculptural detail.
Via dei Coronari
West of Palazzo Altemps, narrow Via dei Coronari, and some of the streets around, are the fulcrum of Rome’s antiques trade, and, although the prices are as high as you might expect in such a location, there’s a huge number of shops (Via dei Coronari consists of virtually nothing else) selling a tremendous variety of stuff, and a browse along here makes for an absorbing bit of sightseeing.
Sant’Agostino
Just east of Palazzo Altemps, the Renaissance facade of the church of Sant’Agostino (daily 7.45am–noon & 4–7.30pm; free) takes up one side of a drab piazza of the same name. It’s not much to look at from the outside, but a handful of art treasures might draw you in. Just inside the door, the serene statue of the Madonna del Parto, by Sansovino, is traditionally invoked during pregnancy, and is accordingly surrounded by photos of newborn babes and their blissful parents. Further into the church, take a look at Raphael’s vibrant fresco of Isaiah, on the third pillar on the left, beneath which is another work by Sansovino, a craggy St Ann, Virgin and Child. But the biggest crowds gather around the first chapel on the left, where the Madonna and Pilgrims by Caravaggio – a characteristic work of what was at the time almost revolutionary realism – shows two peasants with dirty clothes praying at the feet of a sensuous Mary and Child.
Piazza Montecitorio and around
A short walk east from Sant’Agostino, Piazza Montecitorio takes its name from the bulky Palazzo di Montecitorio on its northern side, home since 1871 to the Italian parliament. Just beyond, off Via del Corso, the Palazzo Chigi flanks the north side of Piazza Colonna, official residence of the prime minister. The Column of Marcus Aurelius in the centre of the piazza was erected between 180 and 190 AD to commemorate military victories in northern Europe, and, like the column of Trajan that inspired it, is decorated with reliefs depicting scenes from the campaigns.
Campo de’ Fiori and the Ghetto
Just south of the centro storico proper, this is Rome’s old centre part two, a similar neighbourhood of cramped, wanderable streets opening out into small squares flanked by churches. However, it’s less monumental and more of a working quarter, as evidenced by its main focus, Campo de’ Fiori, whose fruit and veg stalls are a marked contrast to the pavement artists of Piazza Navona. Close by are the dark alleys of the old Jewish Ghetto, and the busy traffic junction of Largo di Torre Argentina.
Largo di Torre Argentina and around
Largo di Torre Argentina is a large square, frantic with traffic circling around the ruins of four Republican-era temples, now home to a thriving colony of cats. On the far side of the square, the Teatro Argentina was in 1816 the venue for the first performance of Rossini’s Barber of Seville, not a success on the night: Rossini was apparently booed into taking refuge in the Bernasconi pastry shop which used to be next door. Nearby, the Crypta Balbi, around the corner at Via delle Botteghe Oscure 31 (Tues–Sun 9am–7.45pm; €7; part of the Museo Nazionale Romano), is housed on the part-excavated site of an old Roman imperial theatre and has displays covering the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the late Middle Ages.
The Gesù and Rooms of St Ignatius
Just east of Largo Argentina, the church of Gesù (daily 6.45am–12.45pm & 4–7.30pm) is a huge structure. The headquarters of the Jesuits, it was ideal for the large and fervent congregations the order wanted to attract – indeed, high and wide, with a single-aisled nave and short transepts edging out under a huge dome, it has since served as the model for Jesuit churches everywhere. The facade is by Giacomo della Porta, the interior the work of Vignola.
The glitzy tomb of the order’s founder, St Ignatius, is topped by a huge globe of lapis lazuli – the largest piece in existence. Opposite, the tomb of the sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary St Francis Xavier holds a reliquary containing the saint’s arm, severed from the rest of his (incorruptible) body, which remains a focus of pilgrimage in Goa. Otherwise it’s the staggering richness of the church’s interior that you remember, especially the paintings by the Genoese painter Baciccia in the dome and the nave, the Triumph in the Name of Jesus, which oozes out of its frame in a tangle of writhing bodies, flowing drapery and stucco angels clinging on like limpets.
Next door, the Rooms of St Ignatius (Mon–Sat 4–6pm, Sun 10am–noon; free) occupy part of the first floor of the Jesuit headquarters, and are basically the rooms – recently restored – where St Ignatius lived from 1544 until his death in 1556.There are bits and pieces of furniture and memorabilia relating to the saint, but the true draw is the decorative corridor just outside, designed by Andrea Pozzo in 1680 – a superb exercise in perspective on a minimized scale, giving an illusion of a grand hall in what is a relatively small space.
Campo de’ Fiori
On the other side of Largo Argentina, Campo de’ Fiori is in many ways Rome’s most appealing square, home to a lively fruit and vegetable market (Mon–Sat 8am–1pm), and flanked by restaurants and cafés. No one really knows how the square came by its name, which means “field of flowers”, but one theory holds that it was derived from the Roman Campus Martius, which used to cover most of this part of town; another claims it is after Flora, the mistress of Pompey, whose theatre used to stand on what is now the northeast corner of the square – a huge complex by all accounts, which was the supposed location of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Later, Campo de’ Fiori was an important point on papal processions between the Vatican and the major basilicas of Rome (notably San Giovanni in Laterano) and a site of public executions. The most notorious killing was of Giordano Bruno, a late sixteenth-century freethinker who followed the teachings of Copernicus and was denounced to the Inquisition; his trial lasted for years under a succession of different popes, and finally, when he refused to renounce his philosophical beliefs, he was burned at the stake. His death is commemorated by a statue in the middle of the square.
Palazzo Farnese
Just south of Campo de’ Fiori, Piazza Farnese is a quite different square, with great fountains spurting out of lilies – the Farnese emblem – into marble tubs brought from the Baths of Caracalla, and the sober bulk of the Palazzo Farnese itself, begun in 1514 by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and finished off after the architect’s death by Michelangelo, who added the top tier of windows and cornice. The building now houses the French Embassy but is open to those organized enough to make an appointment (Mon & Thurs visits in French or Italian at 3pm, 4pm & 5pm; free; book in advance at Via Giulia 250, on 06.6889.2818 or at visitfarnese@france-italia.it; closed late July–early Sept & end Dec) – worth doing to see the amazing Baroque ceiling frescoes of Annibale Carracci in one of the rear reception rooms.
Galleria Spada
If you can’t make it to the Palazzo Farnese, make do instead with the Palazzo Spada, back towards Via Arenula at Piazza Capo di Ferro 3, and the Galleria Spada inside (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €5); walk right through the courtyard to the back of the building. Its four rooms, decorated in the manner of a Roman noble family’s home, have two portraits of Cardinal Bernardino Spada by Reni and Guercino, and the building itself is a treat: its facade is frilled with stucco adornments. Left off the small courtyard, there’s a crafty trompe l’oeil by Borromini – a tunnel whose actual length is multiplied about four times through the architect’s tricks with perspective – though to get a proper look you have to wait for one of the guided tours.
Via Giulia
Via Giulia runs parallel to the Tiber from the Ponte Sisto, and was laid out by Julius II to connect the bridge with the Vatican. The street was conceived as the centre of papal Rome, and Julius commissioned Bramante to line it with imposing palaces. Bramante didn’t get very far with the plan, as Julius was soon succeeded by Leo X, but the street quickly became a popular residence for wealthier Roman families, and is still packed full with stylish palazzi and antique shops.
Via Portico d’Ottavia and around
Cross over to the far side of Via Arenula and you’re in what was once the city’s Jewish Ghetto, a crumbling area of narrow, switchback streets and alleys, easy to lose your way in. There was a Jewish population in Rome as far back as the second century BC, and although much depleted now, it still numbers 16,000 (around half Italy’s total), and the quarter is thriving, with a few kosher restaurants, bakers and butchers on and around the main artery of the Jewish area, Via Portico d’Ottavia. This leads down to the Portico d’Ottavia, a not terribly well preserved second-century-BC gate, rebuilt by Augustus and dedicated to his sister in 23 BC, which was the entranceway to the adjacent amphitheatre of the Teatro di Marcello (daily: summer 9am–7pm; winter 9am–6pm; free). Begun by Julius Caesar, finished by Augustus, this was pillaged in the fourth century and not properly restored until the Middle Ages, after which it became a formidable fortified palace for a succession of different rulers, including the Orsini family. Crossing to the other side of Via Portico d’Ottavia, narrow Via della Reginella leads to Piazza Mattei, whose Fontana delle Tartarughe, or “turtle fountain”, is a delightful late-sixteenth-century creation, perhaps restored by Bernini.
The Synagogue
The Ghetto’s principal Jewish sight is the huge Synagogue by the river (June–Sept Mon–Thurs & Sun 10am–7pm, Fri 10am–4pm; Oct–May Mon–Thurs & Sun 10am–5pm, Fri 9am–2pm; closed Sat & Jewish hols; €7.50), built in 1904 and very much dominating all around with its bulk – not to mention the carabinieri who stand guard 24 hours a day. The only way to see the building is on one of the free, regular guided tours it runs in English, afterwards taking in the Synagogue’s museum. The interior of the building is impressive, rising to a high, rainbow-hued dome; the tours are excellent, giving good background on the building and Rome’s Jewish community in general; and the recently revamped museum holds one of the most important collections of Judaica in Europe.
Isola Tiberina
Almost opposite the Syngagogue, the Ponte Fabricio crosses the river to Isola Tiberina. Built in 62 BC, it’s the only classical bridge to remain intact without help from the restorers (the Ponte Cestio, on the other side of the island, was partially rebuilt in the nineteenth century). As for the island, it’s a calm respite from the city centre proper, with its originally tenth-century church of San Bartolomeo, worth a peep inside for its ancient columns and an equally ancient wellhead on the altar steps, carved with figures relating to the founding of the church; the figures include St Bartholomew himself, who also features in the painting above the altar, hands tied above his head, on the point of being skinned alive – his famous and gruesome mode of martyrdom. Beyond the island, you can see the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge) – all that remains of the first stone bridge to span the Tiber, originally built between 179 and 142 BC.
Piazza Venezia
Piazza Venezia is not so much a square as a road junction, and a busy one at that. But it’s a good central place to start your wanderings, close to both the medieval and Renaissance centre of Rome and the bulk of the ruins of the ancient city. Flanked on all sides by imposing buildings, it’s a dignified focal point for the city in spite of the traffic, and a spot you’ll find yourself returning to time and again.
Palazzo Venezia
Forming the western side of the piazza, Palazzo Venezia (Tues–Sun 9am–7.30pm; €4) was the first large Renaissance palace in the city, built for the Venetian Pope Paul II in the mid-fifteenth century and for a long time the embassy of the Venetian Republic. More famously, Mussolini moved in here while in power, occupying the vast Sala del Mappamondo and making his declamatory speeches to the huge crowds below from the small balcony facing onto the piazza. Nowadays it’s a venue for great exhibitions and home to the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia, a museum of Renaissance arts and crafts, with a number of fifteenth-century devotional paintings, bronzes and sculpture.
San Marco
Adjacent to the Palazzo Venezia on its southern side, the church of San Marco, accessible from Piazza San Marco (Mon 4–6.30pm, Tues–Sat 8am–noon & 4–6.30pm, Sun 9am–1pm & 4–8pm, closed third Thurs of the month), is the Venetian church in Rome – and one of its most ancient basilicas. Standing on the spot where the apostle is supposed to have lived while in the city, it was rebuilt in 833 and added to by various Renaissance and eighteenth-century popes. Look out for the apse mosaic dating from the ninth century, which shows Pope Gregory offering his church to Christ.
The Vittoriano
Everything pales into insignificance beside the marble monstrosity rearing up across the street – the Vittorio Emanuele Monument or Vittoriano (daily 9.30am–6pm; free; lift summer Mon–Thurs 9am–7.30pm, Fri & Sat 9.30am–11.30pm, Sun 9.30am–8.30pm; winter Mon–Thurs 9.30am–6.30pm, Fri–Sun 9.30am–7.30pm; €7), erected at the beginning of the twentieth century as the “Altar of the Nation” to commemorate Italian Unification. It has been variously likened in the past to a typewriter (because of its shape), and, by American GIs, to a wedding cake. It’s great fun clambering up and down the sweeping terraces and flights of steps, cutting through eventually to the Capitoline Museums behind. There are things to see inside (principally a large Unification museum), but the main interest is on the outside: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the top of the first flight of steps; the equestrian statue of Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world’s largest, on the next level; the terraces above this; and finally the lifts which whisk you to the terrace at the top – not cheap, but the views are all-encompassing, and of course this is the one place from which you can’t see the Vittoriano.
The Capitoline Hill
The real pity about the Vittoriano is that it obscures views of the Capitoline Hill behind – once the spiritual and political centre of the Roman Empire. Apart from anything else, this hill has contributed key words to the English language, including, of course, “capitol”, and “money”, which comes from the temple to Juno Moneta that once stood up here and housed the Roman mint. The Capitoline also played a significant role in medieval and Renaissance times: the flamboyant fourteenth-century dictator Cola di Rienzo stood here in triumph in 1347, and was murdered here by an angry mob seven years later – a humble statue marks the spot.
Santa Maria in Aracoeli
The church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (daily 9am–12.30pm & 3–6.30pm) crowns the highest point on the Capitoline Hill, built on the site of a temple where, according to legend, the Tiburtine Sybil foretold the birth of Christ. Reached by a steep flight of steps erected by Cola di Rienzo in 1348, or by cutting through from the Vittoriano, it’s one of Rome’s most ancient basilicas, with, in the first chapel on the right, some fine frescoes by Pinturicchio recording the life of San Bernardino. The church is also known for its role as keeper of the “Bambino”, a small statue of the infant Christ, carved from the wood of a Gethsemane olive tree. It’s said to have healing powers and was traditionally called out to the sickbeds of the ill and dying all over the city, its coach commanding instant right of way through the heavy Rome traffic. The statue was stolen in 1994, however, and a copy now stands in its place, in a small chapel to the left of the high altar.
Piazza del Campidoglio
Next to the steps up to Santa Maria is the cordonata, an elegant, gently rising ramp, topped with two Roman statues of Castor and Pollux, leading to Piazza del Campidoglio, one of Rome’s most elegant squares. Designed by Michelangelo in the last years of his life for Pope Paul III, the square wasn’t in fact completed until the late seventeenth century. Michelangelo balanced the piazza, redesigning the facade of what is now the Palazzo dei Conservatori and projecting an identical building across the way, known as the Palazzo Nuovo. Both are angled slightly to focus on Palazzo Senatorio, Rome’s town hall. In the centre of the square Michelangelo placed an equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, which had previously stood for years outside San Giovanni in Laterano; early Christians had refrained from melting it down because they believed it to be of the Emperor Constantine. After careful restoration, the original is now behind a glass wall in the Palazzo Nuovo, and a copy has taken its place at the centre of the piazza.
The Capitoline Museums
The Palazzo dei Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo together make up the Capitoline Museums (Tues–Sun 9am–8pm; €6.50, €8.50 7-day joint ticket with Centrale Montemartini; www.museicapitolini.org), containing some of the city’s most important ancient sculpture and art. The Palazzo dei Conservatori holds the larger, more varied collection. Among its many treasures are the so-called Spinario, a Roman statue of a boy picking a thorn out of his foot; the Etruscan bronze she-wolf nursing the mythic founders of the city; and the Hannibal Room, covered in wonderfully vivid fifteenth-century paintings recording Rome’s wars with Carthage, and so named for a rendering of Hannibal seated impressively on an elephant.
The wonderfully airy new wing holds the original of Marcus Aurelius, formerly in the square outside, alongside a giant bronze statue of Constantine, or at least its head, hand and orb. Nearby stands the rippling bronze of Hercules, behind which are part of the foundations and a retaining wall from the original temple of Jupiter here, discovered when the work for the new wing was undertaken. And when museum fatigue sets in you can climb up to the floor above to the second-floor café, whose terrace commands one of the best views in Rome. The second-floor pinacoteca holds Renaissance painting from the fourteenth century to the late seventeenth century. Highlights include a couple of portraits by Van Dyck, a penetrating Portrait of a Crossbowman by Lorenzo Lotto, a pair of paintings from 1590 by Tintoretto, and a very fine early work by Lodovico Carracci, Head of a Boy. In one of the two large main galleries, there’s a vast picture by Guercino, depicting the Burial of Santa Petronilla (an early Roman martyr who was the supposed daughter of St Peter), and two paintings by Caravaggio, one a replica of the young John the Baptist which hangs in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, the other an early work known as The Fortune-Teller.
The Palazzo Nuovo across the square – also accessible by way of an underground walkway that takes in good views of the Roman Forum just below – is the more manageable of the two museums, with some of the best of the city’s Roman sculpture crammed into half a dozen or so rooms. Among them is the remarkable statue Dying Gaul, as well as a Satyr Resting that was the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Marble Faun; and the red marble Laughing Silenus. There are also busts and statues of Roman emperors and other famous names: a young Augustus, a cruel Caracalla and, the centrepiece, a life-size portrait of Helena, the mother of Constantine, reclining gracefully. Don’t miss the coy, delicate Capitoline Venus, housed in a room on its own.
The Tarpeian Rock and San Pietro in Carcere
Behind the Palazzo Senatorio, Via del Monte Tarpeio follows the brink of the old Tarpeian Rock, from which traitors would be thrown in ancient times – named after Tarpeia, who betrayed the city to the Sabines. On the left side of the Palazzo Senatorio (as you face it from the Campidoglio) steps lead down to the little church of San Pietro in Carcere (daily: April–Sept 9am–6pm; Oct-March 9am–5.30pm; donation expected for the prison), built above the ancient Mamertine Prison, where spies, vanquished soldiers and other enemies of the Roman state were incarcerated, and where St Peter himself was held. Steps lead down into the murky depths of the jail, where you can see the bars to which he was chained, along with the spring the saint is said to have created to baptize the other prisoners down here. At the top of the staircase, hollowed out of the honeycomb of stone, is an imprint claimed to be of St Peter’s head as he tumbled down the stairs (though when the prison was in use, the only access was through a hole in the ceiling). It’s an unappealing place even now, and you won’t be sorry to leave.
Piazza Bocca della Verità
On the other side of the Capitoline Hill, down towards the Tiber, Via di Teatro di Marcello meets the riverside main drag at the Piazza Bocca della Verità, home to two of the city’s better-preserved Roman temples, the Temple of Portunus and the Temple of Hercules Victor – the oldest surviving marble structure in Rome and long known as the Temple of Vesta because, like all vestal temples, it’s circular. Both date from the end of the second century BC, and although you can’t get inside, they’re worth a look as fine examples of republican-era places of worship.
More interesting is the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin on the far side of the square (daily 10am–5pm), a typically Roman medieval basilica with a huge marble altar and a colourful and ingenious Cosmati-work marble mosaic floor – one of the city’s finest. Outside in the portico, and giving the square its name, is the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth), an ancient Roman drain cover in the shape of an enormous face that in medieval times would apparently swallow the hand of anyone who hadn’t told the truth. It was particularly popular with husbands anxious to test the faithfulness of their wives; now it is one of the city’s biggest tour-bus attractions.
Ancient Rome
There are remnants of the ancient Roman era all over the city, but the most concentrated and central grouping – which for simplicity’s sake we’ve called Ancient Rome – is the area that stretches southeast from the Capitoline Hill. It’s a reasonably traffic-free and self-contained part of the city, but it wasn’t always like this. Mussolini ploughed Via dei Fori Imperiali through here in the 1930s, with the intention of turning it into one giant archeological park, and this to some extent is what it is. You could spend a good day or so picking your way through the rubble of what was once the heart of the ancient world.
Trajan’s Markets and the Imperial Forums
One of the major victims of Mussolini’s plan was the Imperial Forums, which were built as ancient Rome grew in power and the Forum proper became too small. The ruins of forums built by Caesar, Augustus and Trajan, among others, litter either side of the Via dei Fori Imperiali, and are still being excavated. But you can visit the largest and latest of these, the Forum of Trajan, which was constructed at what was probably the very pinnacle of Roman power and prestige and incorporates the crescent of shops and arcades known as Trajan’s Markets (Tues–Sun: April–Oct 9am–7pm; Nov–March 9am–5pm; €6.50). Accessible from Via IV Novembre, the Great Hall here is an impressive two-storeyed space, and incorporates a number of finds from the Imperial Forums, including a colossal head of Constantine, a torso of a warrior, part of the temple of the Forum of Augustus and a bit of the frieze from Casear’s temple of Venus Genetrix – three columns of which still stand in the Forum of Caesar across the road, and are viewable from the terrace upstairs. Afterwards descend to the Via Biberatica, whose shops and taverns wind around the bottom of the arcade before climbing to the belvedere for a better view over the forum proper, the most notable remains of which are the column stumps of the massive Basilica Ulpia, and the enormous Column of Trajan next to it – erected to celebrate the emperor’s victories in Dacia (modern Romania) in 112 AD, and covered from top to bottom with reliefs commemorating the highlights of the campaign.
The Roman Forum
The five or so acres that make up the Roman Forum were once the heart of the Mediterranean world, and, although the glories of ancient Rome are hard to glimpse here now, there’s a symbolic allure to the place, and at certain times of day a desolate drama, that make it one of the most compelling sets of ruins anywhere in the world. You need some imagination and a little history to really appreciate the place but the public spaces are easy enough to discern, especially the spinal Via Sacra, the best-known street of ancient Rome, along which victorious emperors and generals would ride in procession to give thanks at the Capitoline’s Temple of Juno. Towards the Capitoline Hill end of the Via Sacra, the large cube-shaped building is the Curia, built on the orders of Julius Caesar as part of his programme for expanding the Forum, although what you see now is a third-century-AD reconstruction. The Senate met here, and inside three wide stairs rise left and right, on which about 300 senators could be accommodated with their folding chairs.
Arch of Septimius Severus to the House of the Vestal Virgins
Nearby, the Arch of Septimius Severus was constructed in the early third century AD by his sons Caracalla and Galba to mark their father’s victories in what is now Iran. The friezes on it recall Severus and in particular Caracalla, who ruled Rome with a reign of undisciplined terror for seven years having murdered his brother. Next to the arch, the low brown wall is the Rostra, from which important speeches were made (it was from here that Mark Anthony most likely spoke about Caesar after his death), to the left of which are the long stairs of the Basilica Julia, built by Julius Caesar in the 50s BC after he returned from the Gallic wars. A bit further along, on the right, rails mark the site of the Lacus Curtius, the spot where, according to legend, a chasm opened during the earliest days of the city and the soothsayers determined that it would only be closed once Rome had sacrificed its most valuable possession into it. Marcus Curtius, a Roman soldier who declared that Rome’s most valuable possession was a loyal citizen, hurled himself and his horse into the void and it duly closed.
Next to the Basilica Julia, the enormous pile of rubble topped by three graceful Corinthian columns is the Temple of Castor and Pollux, dedicated in 484 BC to the divine twins or Dioscuri, who appeared miraculously to ensure victory for the Romans in a key battle. Beyond here, the House of the Vestal Virgins is a second-century-AD reconstruction of a building originally built by Nero: four floors of rooms around a central courtyard, fringed by the statues or inscribed pedestals of the women themselves, with the round Temple of Vesta at the near end.
Visiting the Forum, Palatine and Colosseum
The Forum, Palatine and Colosseum are accessible either by the Via dei Fori Imperiali entrance to the Forum or the Palatine entrance on Via di San Gregorio. You can also exit at the Colosseum end of the Forum, or at the opposite end, where you join the path up to the Capitoline Hill. All three sites are open every day during the following hours: mid-Feb to mid-March 8.30am–4pm; mid- to end March 8.30am–4.30pm; April–Aug 8.30am–6.15pm; Sept 8.30am–6pm; Oct 8.30am–5.30pm; Nov to mid-Feb 8.30am–3.30pm. Tickets cost €12 for all three sites (18–24-year-olds €7.50) and are valid for one day. There are guided tours of the Forum in English every day at 1pm, and of the Palatine at noon; both cost €4. Audioguides cost €4.50.
The Basilica of Maxentius and the Arch of Titus
Almost opposite, across the Via Sacra, a shady walkway to the left leads to the Basilica of Maxentius, in terms of size and ingenuity probably the Forum’s most impressive remains. Begun by Maxentius, it was continued by his co-emperor and rival, Constantine, after he had defeated him at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. From here the Via Sacra climbs more steeply to the Arch of Titus, built by Titus’s brother, Domitian, after the emperor’s death in 81 AD, to commemorate his victories in Judea in 70 AD, and his triumphal return from that campaign.
The Palatine Hill
Rising above the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill (for opening hours, see Visiting the Forum, Palatine and Colosseum) is supposedly where the city of Rome was founded, and is home to some of its most ancient remains. In a way it’s a more pleasant site to tour than the Forum, and a good place to have a picnic and relax after the rigours of the ruins below. In the days of the Republic, the Palatine was the most desirable address in Rome (the word “palace” is derived from Palatine), and big names continued to colonize it during the imperial era, trying to outdo each other with ever larger and more magnificent dwellings.
The site
Along the main path up from the Forum, the Domus Flavia was once one of the most splendid residences, and, to the left, the top level of the gargantuan Domus Augustana spreads to the far brink of the hill – not the home of Augustus as its name suggests, but the private house of any emperor (or “Augustus”). You can look down from here on its vast central courtyard with fountain and wander to the brink of the deep trench of the Stadium. On the far side of the Stadium, the ruins of the Domus and Baths of Septimius Severus cling to the side of the hill, while the large grey building nearby houses the Museo Palatino, which contains an assortment of statuary, pottery and architectural fragments that have been excavated on the Palatine during the last 150 years. In the opposite direction from the Domus Flavia is the Cryptoporticus, a long passage built by Nero to link the vestibule of his Domus Aurea with the Palatine palaces, and decorated with well-preserved Roman stuccowork at the far end, towards the House of Livia – originally believed to have been the residence of Livia, the wife of Augustus, though now identified as simply part of the House of Augustus – the set of ruins beyond. Climb up the steps by the entrance to the Cryptoporticus and you’re in the bottom corner of the Farnese Gardens, among the first botanical gardens in Europe, laid out by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in the mid-sixteenth century and now a tidily planted retreat from the exposed heat of the ruins. At the far end of the gardens are the traces of an Iron Age village that perhaps marks the real centre of Rome’s ancient beginnings.
The Arch of Constantine
Outside the Colosseum exit of the Forum, the huge Arch of Constantine on your right was placed here in the early decades of the fourth century AD after Constantine had consolidated his power as sole emperor. The arch demonstrates the deterioration of the arts during the late stages of the Roman Empire – most of the sculptural decoration here had to be removed from other monuments, and the builders were probably quite ignorant of the significance of the pieces they borrowed: the round medallions are taken from a temple dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian’s lover, Antinous, and show Antinous and Hadrian engaged in a hunt. The other pieces, taken from the Forum of Trajan, show Dacian prisoners captured in Trajan’s war.
The Colosseum
The Colosseum (for opening hours, see Visiting the Forum, Palatine and Colosseum) is perhaps Rome’s most awe-inspiring ancient monument, an enormous structure that despite the depredations of nearly two thousand years of earthquakes, fires, riots, wars and, not least, plundering for its seemingly inexhaustible supply of ready-cut travertine blocks, still stands relatively intact – a recognizable symbol not just of the city of Rome, but of the entire ancient world. It’s not much more than a shell now, eaten away by pollution and cracked by the vibrations of cars and the metro, but the basic structure is easy to see, and has served as a model for stadiums around the world ever since. You’ll not be alone in appreciating it and during summer the combination of people and scaffolding can make a visit more like touring a contemporary building-site than an ancient monument. But visit late in the evening or early morning before the tour buses have arrived, and the arena can seem more like the marvel it really is.
Originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre (the name Colosseum is a much later invention), it was begun around 72 AD by the Emperor Vespasian. Inside, there was room for a total of around 60,000 people seated and 10,000 or so standing. Seating was allocated according to social status, with the emperor and his attendants naturally occupying the best seats in the house, and the social class of the spectators diminishing as you got nearer the top. There was a labyrinth below that was covered with a wooden floor and punctuated at various places for trap doors that could be opened as required, and lifts to raise and lower the animals that were to take part in the games. The floor was covered with canvas to make it waterproof and the canvas was covered with several centimetres of sand to absorb blood; in fact, our word “arena” is derived from the Latin word for sand.
The Tridente
The northern part of Rome’s centre is sometimes known as the Tridente on account of the trident shape of the roads leading down from the apex of Piazza del Popolo – Via di Ripetta, Via del Corso and Via del Babuino. The area east of Via del Corso, focusing on Piazza di Spagna, was historically the artistic quarter of the city, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Grand Tourists would come here in search of the colourful and exotic. Keats and Giorgio de Chirico are just two of those who lived on Piazza di Spagna; Goethe had lodgings on Via del Corso; and institutions like Caffè Greco and Babington’s Tea Rooms were the meeting-places of the local expat community for close on a couple of centuries. Today these institutions have given ground to more latter-day traps for the tourist dollar, and the area around Via dei Condotti is these days strictly international designer territory. But the air of a Rome being discovered – even colonized – by foreigners persists, even if most of those hanging out on the Spanish Steps are flying-visit teenagers. South of the Tridente, the area around the Trevi Fountain is similarly thronged by tourists, but not unpleasantly so, and the knot of streets around the fountain holds a few less essential stops and are a logical prelude to the sights of the Quirinale Hill immediately above.
Via del Corso
The central prong of the Tridente and the boundary of the historic centre to the east, Via del Corso is Rome’s main thoroughfare, leading all the way from Piazza Venezia at its southern end up to Piazza del Popolo to the north. On its eastern side, it gives onto the swish shopping streets that lead up to Piazza di Spagna; on the western side the web of streets tangles its way right down to the Tiber. It is Rome’s principal shopping street, home to a mixture of upmarket boutiques and chain stores that make it a busy stretch during the day, full of hurrying pedestrians and crammed buses, but a relatively dead one after dark. The good news is that the top end, beyond Piazza Colonna, where the bulk of the shops are, is pedestrianized, so shopping and strolling is much easier and more enjoyable.
Piazza di Spagna
Via del Babuino leads down from Piazza del Popolo to Piazza di Spagna, a long straggle of a square almost entirely enclosed by buildings and centring on the distinctive boat-shaped Barcaccia fountain, the last work of Bernini’s father. It apparently remembers the great flood of Christmas Day 1598, when a barge from the Tiber was washed up on the slopes of Pincio Hill here.
The Keats-Shelley House
Fronting the square, opposite the fountain, is the house where the poet John Keats died in 1821. It now serves as the Keats-Shelley House (Mon–Fri 10am–1pm & 2–6pm, Sat 11am–2pm & 3–6pm; €4; www.keats-shelley-house.org), an archive of English-language literary and historical works and a museum of manuscripts and literary memorabilia relating to the Keats circle of the early nineteenth century – namely the poet himself, Shelley and Mary Shelley, and Byron (who at one time lived across the square). Among many bits of manuscript, letters and the like, there’s a silver scallop-shell reliquary containing locks of Milton’s and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s hair, while Keats’s death mask, stored in the room where he died, captures a resigned grimace. Keats didn’t really enjoy his time in Rome, referring to it as his “posthumous life”: he was tormented by his love for Fanny Brawne, and spent months in pain before he died, confined to the rooming house with his artist friend Joseph Severn, to whom he remarked that he could already feel “the flowers growing over him”.
The Spanish Steps
The only Spanish feature of the Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Spagna) is the fact that they lead down to the Spanish Embassy, which also gave the piazza its name. Sweeping down in a cascade of balustrades and balconies, in the nineteenth century the steps were the hangout of young hopefuls waiting to be chosen as artists’ models. Nowadays the scene is not much changed, with the steps providing the venue for international posing and flirting late into the summer nights. At the top is the Trinità dei Monti, a largely sixteenth-century church designed by Carlo Maderno and paid for by the French king. Its rose-coloured Baroque facade overlooks the rest of Rome from its hilltop site, and it’s worth clambering up just for the views, but do look inside for a couple of works by Daniele da Volterra, notably a soft, flowing fresco of the Assumption in the third chapel on the right, which includes a portrait of his teacher Michelangelo, and a Deposition across the nave.
Piazza del Popolo
The oval-shaped expanse of Piazza del Popolo is a dignified meeting of roads, now pedestrianized, that was laid out in 1538 by Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) to make an impressive entrance to the city. The monumental Porta del Popolo went up in 1655, and was the work of Bernini, whose patron Alexander VII’s Chigi family symbol – the heap of hills surmounted by a star – can clearly be seen above the main gateway. During summer, the steps around the obelisk and fountain, and the cafés on either side of the square, are popular hangouts. But the square’s real attraction is the unbroken view it gives all the way down Via del Corso, to the central columns of the Vittoriano. If you get to choose your first view of the centre of Rome, make it this one.
Santa Maria del Popolo
On the far side of the piazza, hard against the city walls, Santa Maria del Popolo (Mon–Sat 7am–noon & 4–7pm, Sun 8am–1.30pm & 4.30–7.30pm) holds some of the best Renaissance art of any Roman church. It was originally erected here in 1099 over the supposed burial place of Nero, in order to sanctify what was believed to be an evil place. Inside, the Chigi chapel, second on the left, was designed by Raphael for Agostino Chigi in 1516. Michelangelo’s protégé, Sebastiano del Piombo, was responsible for the altarpiece, and two of the sculptures in the corner niches, of Daniel and Habakkuk, are by Bernini. But it’s two pictures by Caravaggio in the left-hand chapel of the north transept that attract the most attention. These are typically dramatic works – one, the Conversion of St Paul, showing Paul and horse bathed in a beatific radiance; the other, the Crucifixion of St Peter, depicting Peter as an aged but strong figure, dominated by the muscular figures hoisting him up.
Ara Pacis
Via Ripetta runs southwest from Piazza del Popolo into Piazza del Augusta Imperatore, an odd square of largely Mussolini-era buildings, dominated by the massive Mausoleum of Augustus, burial place of the emperor and his family and now under long-term restoration.
On the far side of the square, the Ara Pacis Augustae or “Altar of Augustan Peace” is now enclosed in a controversial purpose-built structure designed by the New York-based architect Richard Meier, its angular lines and sheer white surfaces dominating the Tiber side of the square (daily 9am–7pm; €6.50). The altar is a more substantially recognizable Roman remain than the mausoleum, a marble block enclosed by sculpted walls built in 13 BC, probably to celebrate Augustus’s victory over Spain and Gaul and the peace it heralded. It’s a superb example of Roman sculpture, with a frieze on one side showing the imperial family at the height of its power: Augustus, his great general Marcus Agrippa, and Augustus’s wife Livia, followed by a victory procession containing her son – and Augustus’s eventual successor – Tiberius and niece Antonia, the latter caught simply and realistically turning to her husband, Drusus. On the opposite side the veiled figure is believed to be Julia, Augustus’s daughter.
The Trevi Fountain
South of the Piazza di Spagna area, across Via del Tritone, is one of Rome’s more surprising sights, easy to stumble on by accident – the Trevi Fountain or Fontana di Trevi, a huge, very Baroque gush of water over statues and rocks built onto the backside of a Renaissance palace and fed by the same source that surfaces at the Barcaccia fountain in Piazza di Spagna. There was a previous Trevi fountain, designed by Alberti, around the corner in Via dei Crociferi, a smaller, more modest affair by all accounts, but Urban VIII decided to upgrade it in line with his other grandiose schemes of the time and employed Bernini, among others, to design an alternative. Work didn’t begin, however, until 1732, when Niccolò Salvi won a competition held by Clement XII to design the fountain, and even then it took thirty years to finish the project. Salvi died in the process, his lungs destroyed by the time spent in the dank waterworks of his construction. The fountain is now a popular hangout and, of course, the place you come to chuck in a coin if you want to guarantee your return to Rome. You might also remember Anita Ekberg frolicking in the fountain in La Dolce Vita, though any attempt at re-creating the scene would be met with an immediate reaction by the police here.
Galleria Colonna
A short stroll south from the Trevi Fountain brings you to the Galleria Colonna, at Via della Pilotta 17 (Sat 9am–1pm, free guided tours in English at 11.45am; closed Aug; €7), part of the Palazzo Colonna complex and home to one of the city’s best collections of fine art still in private hands. The building itself is worth visiting for the massive chandelier-decked Great Hall, but the paintings, too, are worthy of attention, not least the two lascivious depictions of Venus and Cupid (one by Bronzino, the other Ghirlandaio) that eye each other across the room – once considered so risqué that clothes were painted on them and have only recently been removed. Through the Great Hall is the gallery’s collection of landscapes by Dughet (Poussin’s brother-in-law), and beyond that a small group of other high-quality works: Carracci’s early and unusually spontaneous Bean Eater, Tintoretto’s Portrait of an Old Man and a Portrait of a Gentleman caught in supremely confident pose by Veronese. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning in Rome.
Museo delle Cere and the Time Elevator
The Museo delle Cere, which occupies the other side of the Palazzo Colonna (daily 9am–8pm; €7), is a quirky first-floor museum of waxworks that hosts a diverse array of characters from history and Italian culture: not essential viewing by any means but certainly different from anything else you’ll see in Rome, with wax figures of everyone from Mussolini to Francesco Totti. Close by, at Via SS. Apostoli 20, is the Time Elevator (daily 10.30am–7.30pm; €12, children €9), a multimedia film show of the history of Rome from its founding to the present day, with visitors strapped into a chair that moves around a bit like a flight simulator – a half-hour or so the kids might enjoy.
The Quirinale and around
Of the hills that rise up on the eastern side of the centre of Rome, the Quirinale is perhaps the most appealing, home to some of the city’s greatest palaces, but also to some of Rome’s greatest collections, not least in the Palazzo Barberini.
Piazza Barberini
Piazza Barberini, a frenetic traffic junction at the top end of the busy shopping street of Via del Tritone, was named after Bernini’s Fontana del Tritone, which gushes a high jet of water in the centre of the square. Traditionally, this was the Barberini family’s quarter of the city; they were the greatest patrons of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and the sculptor’s works in their honour are thick on the ground around here. He finished the Tritone fountain in 1644, going on shortly after to design the Fontana delle Api (“Fountain of the Bees”) at the bottom end of Via Veneto. Unlike the Tritone fountain you could walk right past this; it’s a smaller, quirkier work, with a broad scallop shell studded with the bees that were the symbol of the Barberini.
Via Veneto
Via Veneto bends north from Piazza Barberini up to the southern edge of the Borghese gardens, its pricey bars and restaurants lining a street that was once the haunt of Rome’s beautiful people, made famous by Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. They left a long time ago, however, and Via Veneto isn’t really any different from other busy streets in central Rome – a pretty, tree-lined road, but with a fair share of high-class tack trying to cash in on departed glory.
The Capuchin cemetery
A little way up Via Veneto on the right, the Capuchin church of Santa Maria della Concezione (daily 9am–noon & 3–6pm) was another sponsored creation of the Barberini, though it’s not a particularly significant building in itself and most people come to see its Capuchin cemetery (same times; minimum €1 donation), one of Rome’s more macabre and bizarre sights. Here, the bones of four thousand monks are set into the walls of a series of chapels, a monument to “Our Sister of Bodily Death” in the words of St Francis, which was erected in 1793. The bones appear in abstract or Christian patterns or as fully clothed skeletons, their faces peering out of their cowls in various twisted expressions of agony.
Palazzo Barberini
On the other side of Piazza Barberini, the vast Palazzo Barberini, at Via Barberini 18, is home to the Galleria d’Arte Antica (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €5), a rich patchwork of mainly Italian art from the early Renaissance to late Baroque period that is in a constant state of rearrangement due to its ongoing restoration. Entry is by way of the spiral staircase on the right, the work of Borromini, which takes you up to the Gran Salone, dominated by Pietro da Cortona’s manic fresco The Triumph of Divine Providence, which is truly one of the city’s best free attractions, as the ticket office lies just beyond. In the gallery proper, Raphael’s beguiling Fornarina is the first thing you see, a painting of the daughter of a Trasteveran baker thought to have been Raphael’s mistress (Raphael’s name appears clearly on the woman’s bracelet); there’s also Fra’ Filippo Lippi’s warmly maternal Madonna and Child, painted in 1437 and introducing background details, notably architecture, into Italian religious painting for the first time; a room full of portraits, including Bronzino’s rendering of the marvellously erect Stefano Colonna; and portraits of both Henry VIII and St Thomas More by Hans Holbein, as well as Guido Reni’s haunting depiction of Beatrice Cenci.
San Carlo and Sant’Andrea
Heading southeast of Palazzo Barberini, along Via delle Quattro Fontane, brings you to a seventeenth-century landmark, the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Mon–Sat 10am–1pm & 3–6pm, Sun noon–1pm). This was Borromini’s first real design commission, and in it he displays all the ingenuity he later became famous for, cramming the church elegantly into a tiny and awkwardly shaped site. Outside the church are the four fountains that give the street and church their name, each cut into a niche in a corner of the crossroads that marks this, the highest point on the Quirinal Hill. There’s another piece of design ingenuity a few steps southwest, on Via del Quirinale: the domed church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (Mon–Sat 8.30am–noon & 3.30–7pm, Sun 9am–noon & 3.30–7.30pm), which Bernini planned as a kind of flat oval shape to fit into its wide but shallow site. Like San Carlo, it’s unusual and ingenious inside; the upstairs rooms where the Polish saint, St Stanislaus Kostka, lived (and died) in 1568 focus on a disturbingly lifelike painted statue of Stanislaus lying on his deathbed.
The Palazzo del Quirinale
Opposite the church is the featureless wall of the Palazzo del Quirinale (Sun 8.30am–noon; €5), a sixteenth-century structure that was the official summer residence of the popes until Unification, when it became the royal palace. It’s now the home of Italy’s president, and it’s worth braving the security for a glimpse of the style in which popes, despots, kings and now presidents like to live, with a fine set of state rooms and works of art. You can appreciate its exceptional siting from the Piazza del Quirinale, from which views stretch right across the centre of Rome. The main feature of the piazza is the huge statue of the Dioscuri, or Castor and Pollux – massive five-metre-high Roman copies of classical Greek statues, showing the two godlike twins, sons of Jupiter, who according to legend won victory for the Romans in an important battle.
The eighteenth-century papal stables, or Scuderie del Quirinale (www.scuderiequirinale.it), face the palace from across the square. Imaginatively restored as display space for major exhibitions, they feature an impressive equestrian spiral staircase winding up to the exhibition rooms. The modern glass staircase on the side of the building offers the best view over Rome from the Quirinale by far.
Via XX Settembre and Santa Maria della Vittoria
Via XX Settembre spears out towards the Aurelian Wall from Via del Quirinale – not Rome’s most appealing thoroughfare by any means, flanked by the deliberately faceless bureaucracies of the national government, erected after Unification in anticipation of Rome’s ascension as a new world capital. It was, however, the route by which Italian troops entered the city on September 20, 1870; the place where they breached the wall is marked with a column. The church of Santa Maria della Vittoria here (Mon–Sat 8.30am–noon & 3.30–6pm, Sun 3.30–6pm) was built by the Baroque-era architect Carlo Maderno and its interior is one of the most elaborate examples of Baroque decoration in Rome: its ceiling and walls are pitted with carving, and statues are crammed into remote corners as in an over-stuffed attic. The church’s best-known feature, Bernini’s carving the Ecstasy of St Theresa, the centrepiece of the sepulchral chapel of Cardinal Cornaro, is a deliberately melodramatic work featuring a theatrically posed St Theresa, who lays back in groaning submission beneath a mass of dishevelled garments in front of the murmuring cardinals.
The Esquiline, Monti and Termini
Immediately north of the Colosseum, the Esquiline Hill is the highest and largest of the city’s seven hills. Formerly one of the most fashionable residential quarters of ancient Rome, it’s nowadays a mixed area that together with the adjacent Viminale Hill make up the district known as Monti, an appealing and up-and-coming quarter of cobbled streets and neighbourhood bars and restaurants. It’s also an area that most travellers to Rome encounter at some point – not just because of key sights like the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, but also because of its proximity to Termini, whose environs shelter many of Rome’s budget hotels.
The Domus Aurea
One of the Esquiline Hill’s most intriguing sights is without doubt Nero’s Domus Aurea, or Golden House, though unfortunately this is currently closed indefinitely due to flooding and conservation problems. Once covering a vast area between the Palatine and Esquiline, it was built by the Emperor Nero to glorify himself in typical excessive fashion. Rome was accustomed to Nero’s excesses, but it had never seen anything like the Golden House before; the facade was supposed to have been coated in solid gold, there was hot and cold running water in the baths, and the grounds held vineyards and game. Nero didn’t get to enjoy it for long: he died a couple of years after it was finished, and later emperors were determined to erase it from Rome’s cityscape. Vespasian built the Colosseum over the lake and Trajan built his baths on top of the rest of the complex. But if and when it reopens you can view some of the paintings that so captivated artists when it was rediscovered during the Renaissance.
San Pietro in Vincoli
San Pietro in Vincoli (daily: April–Sept 8am–12.30pm & 3.30–7pm; Oct–March 8am–12.30pm & 3–6pm) is one of Rome’s most delightfully plain churches. It was built to house an important relic, the chains (vincoli) that bound St Peter when imprisoned in Jerusalem and those that held him in the Mamertine Prison, which miraculously fused together when they were brought into contact with each other. The chains can still be seen in the confessio beneath the high altar, but most people come for the tomb of Pope Julius II at the far end of the southern aisle. The tomb occupied Michelangelo on and off for much of his career and was the cause of many a dispute with Julius and his successors. The artist eventually gave it up to paint the Sistine Chapel – the only statues that he managed to complete are the Moses, Leah and Rachel, which remain here, and two Dying Slaves (now in the Louvre). The figures are among the artist’s most captivating works, especially Moses: because of a medieval mistranslation of scripture, he is depicted with satyr’s horns instead of the “radiance of the Lord” that Exodus tells us shone around his head. Nonetheless this powerful statue is so lifelike that Michelangelo is alleged to have struck its knee with his hammer and shouted “Speak, damn you!”
Monti and Santa Maria Maggiore
Steps lead down from San Pietro in Vincoli to Via Cavour, a busy central thoroughfare slashed through the Monti neighbourhood in the 1890s to connect the station district to the river – although the last part was never completed. As you walk north towards Santa Maria Maggiore, the streets off to the left are worth a wander and form Monti’s most atmospheric quarter, focusing on Via dei Serpenti and Via del Boschetto, and the narrow streets between them.
After about half a kilometre, the street widens to reveal Santa Maria Maggiore (daily 7am–7pm), one of the city’s greatest basilicas, and with one of Rome’s best-preserved Byzantine interiors – a fact belied by its dull eighteenth-century exterior. Unlike the other great places of pilgrimage in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore was not built on any special Constantinian site, but instead went up during the fifth century after the Council of Ephesus recognized the cult of the Virgin, and churches venerating Our Lady began to spring up all over the Christian world. According to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to Pope Liberius in a dream on the night of August 4, 352 AD, telling him to build a church on the Esquiline Hill, on a spot where he would find a patch of newly fallen snow the next morning. The snow would outline exactly the plan of the church that should be built there in her honour – which of course is exactly what happened, and the first church here was called Santa Maria della Neve (“of the snow”).
The interior
The present structure dates from about 420 AD, and was completed during the reign of Sixtus III, and survives remarkably intact, the broad nave fringed on both sides with strikingly well kept mosaics. The chapel in the right transept holds the elaborate tomb of Sixtus V – another, less famous, Sistine Chapel, decorated with frescoes and stucco reliefs portraying events from his reign. Outside this is the tomb of the Bernini family, including Gian Lorenzo himself, while opposite, the Pauline Chapel is home to the tombs of the Borghese pope Paul V and his immediate predecessor Clement VIII. The high altar contains the relics of St Matthew, among other Christian martyrs, but it’s the mosaics of the arch that really dazzle, a vivid representation of scenes from the life of Christ. There’s a museum underneath the basilica that sports what even by Roman standards is a wide variety of relics (daily 9am–6.30pm; €4), and a loggia above the main entrance whose thirteenth-century mosaics of the “legend of the snow” are worth seeing (tours daily at 9am & 1pm, bookable in advance; 06.446.5836; €3).
Santa Prassede
South of Santa Maria Maggiore, off Via Merulana, the ninth-century church of Santa Prassede (daily 7am–noon & 4–6.30pm) occupies an ancient site, where it’s claimed St Prassede harboured Christians on the run from the Roman persecutions. She apparently collected the blood and remains of the martyrs and placed them in a well where she herself was later buried; a red marble disc in the floor of the nave marks the spot. In the southern aisle, the Chapel of St Zeno was built by Pope Paschal I as a mausoleum for his mother, Theodora, and is decorated with marvellous ninth-century mosaics that make it glitter like a jewel-encrusted bowl. The chapel also contains a fragment of a column supposed to be the one to which Christ was tied when he was scourged.
Via Nazionale and Piazza della Repubblica
A couple of minutes’ walk from Via XX Settembre, Via Nazionale connects Piazza Venezia and the centre of town with the area around Termini and the eastern districts beyond. A focus for much development after Unification, its heavy, overbearing buildings were constructed to give Rome some semblance of modern sophistication when it became capital, but most are now occupied by hotels and mainstream shops and boutiques. About halfway down, the imposing Palazzo delle Esposizioni at Via Nazionale 194 (Tues–Thurs & Sun 10am–8pm, Fri & Sat 10am–10.30pm; www.palazzoesposizioni.it) was designed in 1883 by Pio Piacentini (father of the more famous Marcello, favourite architect of Mussolini), and reopened with much fanfare in 2008 after a five-year revamp. It now hosts regular large-scale exhibitions and houses a cinema, an excellent art and design bookshop and café in its basement, and the fancy Open Colonna restaurant up above.
At the top of Via Nazionale, Piazza della Repubblica is typical of Rome’s nineteenth-century regeneration, a stern and dignified semicircle of buildings that was until recently rather dilapidated but is now – with the help of the very stylish Hotel Exedra – resurgent, centring on a fountain surrounded by languishing nymphs and sea monsters.
Santa Maria degli Angeli
Piazza della Repubblica actually follows the outlines of the exedra of the Baths of Diocletian, the remains of which lie across the piazza and are partially contained in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (Mon–Sat 7am–6.30pm, Sun 7am–7.30pm), one of Rome’s least welcoming churches but giving the best impression of the size and grandeur of Diocletian’s baths complex. It’s a huge, open building, with an interior standardized by Vanvitelli into a rich eighteenth-century confection. The pink granite pillars, at nine feet in diameter the largest in Rome, are original, and the main transept formed the main hall of the baths. The meridian that strikes diagonally across the floor here was until 1846 the regulator of time for Romans (now a cannon shot is fired daily at noon from the Janiculum Hill).
Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano
Behind Santa Maria degli Angeli, the huge halls and courtyards of the Museo delle Terme di Diocleziano, or Diocletian’s baths (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; €7), have been renovated and they and an attached Carthusian monastery now hold what is probably the least interesting part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. The museum’s most evocative part is the large cloister of the church whose sides are crammed with statuary, funerary monuments and sarcophagi and fragments from all over Rome. The galleries that wrap around the cloister hold a reasonable if rather academically presented collection of pre-Roman and Roman finds: busts, terracotta statues, armour and weapons found in Roman tombs.
Palazzo Massimo
Across from Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Palazzo Massimo, Largo Perretti 1 (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; €7, part of the Museo Nazionale Romano), is one of the great museums of Rome, with something worth seeing on every floor.
The basement and ground floors
Start at the basement where there are displays of exquisite gold jewellery from the second century AD, and the mummified remains of an eight-year-old girl, along with a fantastic coin collection. The ground floor is devoted to statuary of the early empire, including a gallery with an unparalleled selection of unidentified busts found all over Rome – amazing pieces of portraiture, and as vivid a representation of patrician Roman life as you’ll find. There are also identifiable faces – a bronze of Germanicus, a marvellous small bust of Caligula, several representations of Livia and a hooded statue of Augustus. Note the superb examples of Roman copies of Greek statuary – an altar found on Via Nomentana stands out, decorated with figures relating to the cult of Bacchus, as well as statues of Aphrodite and Melponome.
The first and second floors
The first floor has sculpted portraits of the various imperial dynasties in roughly chronological order, starting with the Flavian emperors – the craggy determination of Vespasian, the pinched nobility of Nerva – and leading on to Trajan, who appears with his wife Plotina as Hercules, next to a bust of his cousin Hadrian. The collection continues with the Antonine emperors – Antoninus Pius in a heroic nude pose and in several busts, flanked by likenesses of his daughter Faustina Minor. Faustina was the wife of Antoninus’s successor, Marcus Aurelius, who appears in the next room. Further on are the Severans, with the fierce-looking Caracalla looking across past his father Septimius Severus to his brother Geta, whom he later murdered. Finally there’s the second floor, which takes in some of the finest Roman frescoes and mosaics ever found. There’s a stunning set of frescoes from the Villa di Livia, depicting an orchard dense with fruit and flowers and patrolled by partridges and doves, wall paintings rescued from what was perhaps the riverside villa of Augustus’s daughter Julia and Marcus Agrippa, and mosaics showing four chariot drivers and their horses, so finely crafted that from a distance they look as if they’ve been painted.
Termini station
Across the street is the low white facade of Termini station (so named for its proximity to the Baths or “Terme” of Diocletian) and the vast, bus-crammed hubbub that is Piazza dei Cinquecento in front. The station is an ambitious piece of modern architectural design that was completed in 1950 and still entirely dominates the streets around with its low-slung, futuristic lines. As for Piazza dei Cinquecento, it’s a good place to find buses and taxis, but otherwise it and the areas around are not places you’d want to hang around for long.
San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
A short walk from Termini, the studenty neighbourhood of San Lorenzo takes its name from the basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura – one of the great pilgrimage churches of Rome, fronted by a columned portico and with a lovely twelfth-century cloister to its side (daily: summer 7am–12.30pm & 4–8pm; winter 7.30am–12.30pm & 3.30–7pm). The original church here was built over the site of St Lawrence’s martyrdom by Constantine – the saint was reputedly burned to death on a gridiron, halfway through his ordeal apparently uttering the immortal words, “Turn me, I am done on this side.” Where the church of San Lorenzo differs is that it is actually a combination of three churches built at different periods – one a sixth-century reconstruction of Constantine’s church by Pelagius II, which now forms the chancel, another a fifth-century church from the time of Sixtus III, both joined by a basilica from the thirteenth century by Honorius II. Because of its proximity to Rome’s rail yards the church was bombed heavily during World War II, but it has been rebuilt with sensitivity, and inside there are features from all periods: a Cosmati floor, thirteenth-century pulpits and a Paschal candlestick, and a mosaic on the inside of the triumphal arch that is a sixth-century depiction of Pelagius offering his church to Christ; below stairs, catacombs – where St Lawrence was apparently buried – sit among pillars from Constantine’s original structure.
The Celian Hill and San Giovanni
Some of the animals that were to die in the Colosseum were kept in a zoo up on the Celian Hill, just behind the arena, the furthest south of Rome’s seven hills and probably still its most peaceful, with the Villa Celimontana park at its heart.
Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Case Romane
At the summit of the Celian Hill, the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (daily 8.30am–noon & 3.30–6.30pm), marked by its colourful campanile, is dedicated to two government officials who were beheaded here in 316 AD after refusing military service; a railed-off tablet in mid-nave marks the shrine where the saints were martyred and buried. The remains of what is believed to be their house, the Case Romane, are around the corner on Clivo di Scauro (daily except Thurs–Mon 10am–1pm & 3–6pm; €6). Around twenty rooms are open in all, patchily frescoed with pagan and Christian subjects, including the Casa dei Genii, with winged youths and cupids, and the courtyard or nymphaeum, which has a marvellous fresco of a goddess being attended on.
San Gregorio Magno
The road descends from the church and Roman house to the church of San Gregorio Magno (daily 8.30am–12.30pm & 3–6.30pm), founded by St Gregory, who was a monk here before becoming pope in 590 AD. Gregory was an important pope, stabilizing the city after the fall of the empire and effectively establishing the powerful papal role that would endure for the best part of the following 1500 years. Today’s rather ordinary interior doesn’t really do justice to the historical importance of the church, but the lovely Cosmati floor remains intact, and the chapel at the end of the south aisle has a beautifully carved bath showing scenes from St Gregory’s life along with his marble throne, a beaten-up specimen that actually predates the saint by five hundred years.
San Clemente
Down below the Celian Hill, five minutes’ walk from the Colosseum, the church of San Clemente is one of the most visited sights of Rome (church: daily 9am–7pm; free; excavations: Mon–Sat 9am–12.30pm & 3–6pm, Sun noon–6pm; €5), a cream-coloured twelfth-century basilica that’s a conglomeration of three places of worship, encapsulating perhaps better than any other the continuity of history in the city. The ground-floor church is a superb example of a medieval basilica: its facade and courtyard face east in the archaic fashion, there are some fine, warm mosaics in the apse and – perhaps the highlight of the main church – a chapel with frescoes by Masolino, showing scenes from the life of St Catherine. Downstairs there’s the nave of an earlier church, dating to 392 AD, and on a third level a dank Mithraic temple of the late second century where you can see a statue of Mithras slaying the bull and the seats on which the worshippers sat during their ceremonies.
San Giovanni in Laterano and the Lateran Palace
At the far end of Via San Giovanni in Laterano, a ten-minute walk from the Colosseum, the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano (daily 7am–6.30pm) is officially Rome’s cathedral, the seat of the pope as bishop of Rome, and was for centuries the main papal residence. There has been a church on this site since the fourth century, the first established by Constantine, and the present building, reworked by Borromini in the mid-seventeenth century, evokes Rome’s staggering wealth of history, with a host of features from different periods. The doors to the church were taken from the Curia of the Roman Forum, while much of the interior dates from 1600, when Clement VIII had the church remodelled for that Holy Year. The first pillar on the left of the right-hand aisle shows a fragment of Giotto’s fresco of Boniface VIII, proclaiming the first Holy Year in 1300. Further on, a more recent monument commemorates Sylvester I – “the magician pope”, bishop of Rome during much of Constantine’s reign – and incorporates part of his original tomb, said to sweat and rattle its bones when a pope is about to die. Kept secure behind the papal altar are the heads of St Peter and St Paul, the church’s prize relics.
The cloisters, the Lateran Palace and the Baptistry
Outside, the cloisters (daily 9am–6pm; €2) are one of the most pleasing parts of the complex, decorated with early thirteenth-century Cosmati work and with fragments of the original basilica arranged around in no particular order. Adjoining the basilica is the Lateran Palace, part of which is given over to the Museo Storico Vaticano (daily visits on the hour 9am–noon; €5). Largely the work of Sixtus V, this is home to the Lateran Treaty, which ceded control of Rome and the papal territories to the Italian state and was signed on February 11, 1929, at the large writing-desk in the well-named Sala della Conciliazione. Next door, the Baptistry (daily 7am–12.30pm & 4–6.30pm; free) is the oldest surviving baptistry in the Christian world, a mosaic-lined, octagonal structure built during the fifth century that has been the model for many such buildings since.
The Scala Santa and Sancta Sanctorum
There are more ancient remains on the other side of the church, on Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, foremost of which is the Scala Santa (daily: April–Sept 6.15am–noon & 3.30–6.45pm; Oct–March until 6.15pm; free), said to be the staircase from Pontius Pilate’s house down which Christ walked after his trial. The 28 steps are protected by boards, and the only way you’re allowed to climb them is on your knees, which pilgrims do regularly – although there is also a staircase to the side for the less penitent. At the top, the Sancta Sanctorum or chapel of San Lorenzo holds an ancient (sixth- or seventh-century) painting of Christ said to be the work of an angel, hence its name – acheiropoeton, or “not done by human hands”.
The Aventine, Testaccio and south
The area south of the Forum and Palatine has some of the city’s most compelling Christian and ancient sights, from the relatively central Circo Massimo and Baths of Caracalla to the famous catacombs on the fringe of the city on Via Appia Antica. It also has one of Rome’s leafiest and most peaceful corners in the Aventine Hill, along with its funkiest neighbourhoods in Testaccio and up-and-coming Ostiense.
The Circus Maxiumus and Aventine Hill
On its southern side, the Palatine Hill drops down to the Circus Maximus, a long, thin, green expanse bordered by heavily trafficked roads that was the ancient city’s main venue for chariot races; at one time this arena had a capacity of up to 400,000 spectators.
On the far side of the Circus Maximus is the Aventine Hill, the southernmost of the city’s seven hills and the heart of plebeian Rome in ancient times. These days the working-class quarters of the city are further south, and the Aventine is in fact one of the city’s more upmarket residential areas, covered with villas and gardens and one of the few places in the city where you can escape the traffic. A short way up Via Santa Sabina, the church of Santa Sabina (daily 6.30am–12.45pm & 3–7pm) is a strong contender for Rome’s most beautiful basilica: high and wide, its nave and portico were restored back to their fifth-century appearance in the 1930s. Look especially at the main doors, which boast eighteen panels carved with Christian scenes, forming a complete illustrated Bible that includes one of the oldest representations of the Crucifixion in existence. Santa Sabina is also the principal church of the Dominicans, and it’s claimed that the orange trees in the garden outside, which you can glimpse on your way to the restrained cloister, are descendants of those planted by St Dominic himself. Whatever the truth of this, the views from the gardens are splendid – right across the Tiber to the centre of Rome and St Peter’s.
The Baths of Caracalla
Across the far side of Piazza di Porta Capena, the Baths of Caracalla, Viale Terme di Caracalla 52 (Mon 9am–2pm, Tues–Sun 9am to 1hr before sunset; €7.50), are much better preserved and give a far better sense of the scale and monumentality of Roman architecture than most of the extant ruins in the city – so much so that Shelley was moved to write Prometheus Unbound here in 1819. The baths are no more than a shell now, but the walls still rise to very nearly their original height. There are many fragments of mosaics – none spectacular, but quite a few bright and well preserved – and it’s easy to discern a floor plan. As for Caracalla, he was one of Rome’s worst rulers, and it’s no wonder there’s nothing else in the city built by him. The baths are used as the venue for the Teatro dell’Opera’s summer season – one of Mussolini’s better ideas – and attending an opera performance here allows you to see the baths at their most atmospheric.
Testaccio
Across the Aventine, on the far side of Via Marmorata, the solid working-class neighbourhood of Testaccio groups around a couple of main squares, a tight-knit community with a market and a number of bars and small trattorias that was for many years synonymous with the slaughterhouse that sprawls down to the Tiber just beyond. In recent years the area has become trendy, property prices have soared, and some unlikely juxtapositions have emerged, with vegetarian restaurants opening their doors in an area still known for the offal dishes served in its traditional trattorias, and gay and alternative clubs standing cheek-by-jowl with the car-repair shops gouged into Monte Testaccio.
The slaughterhouse, or Mattatoio, once the area’s main employer, is used for concerts and exhibitions now, along with stabling for the city’s horse-and-carriage drivers and a branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, MACRO Future, where a couple of pavilions stage temporary exhibitions of a radical and adventurous nature. Opposite, Monte Testaccio gives the area its name, a 35-metre-high mound created out of the shards of Roman amphorae that were dumped here. It’s an odd sight, the ceramic curls visible through the tufts of grass that crown its higher reaches, with bars and restaurants hollowed out of the slopes below.
The Protestant Cemetery
Via Zabaglia leads from Monte Testaccio to Via Caio Cestio, a left turn up which takes you to the entrance of the Protestant Cemetery (Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 9am–1pm; donation expected), one of the shrines to the English in Rome and a fitting conclusion to a visit to the Keats-Shelley House, since it is here that both poets are buried, along with a handful of other well-known names. In fact, the cemetery’s title is a misnomer – the cemetery is reserved for non-Roman Catholics so you’ll also find famous Italian atheists, Christians of the Orthodox persuasion, and the odd Jew or Muslim buried here.
Most visitors come here to see the grave of Keats, who lies next to his friend, the painter Joseph Severn, in the furthest corner of the less crowded, older part of the cemetery, his stone inscribed as he wished with the words “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” Severn died much later than Keats but asked to be laid here nonetheless, together with his brushes and palette. Shelley’s ashes were brought here at Mary Shelley’s request and interred in the newer part of the cemetery. Among other famous internees, Edward Trelawny, friend and literary associate of Byron and Shelley, lies next to him, the political writer and activist, Gramsci, on the far right-hand side in the middle, to name just two – though if you’re at all interested in star-spotting you should ask to have a look at the English booklet at the entrance.
The Pyramid of Caius Cestius
The most distinctive landmark in this part of town is the mossy pyramidal tomb of one Caius Cestius, who died in 12 BC. Cestius had spent some time in Egypt, and part of his will decreed that all his slaves should be freed – the white pyramid you see today was thrown up by them in only 330 days of what must have been joyful building. It’s open to the public on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, though you can visit the cats who live here, and the volunteers who care for them, any afternoon between 2.30 and 4.30pm.
Centrale Montemartini
It’s a ten-minute walk south down Via Ostiense to the Centrale Montemartini at Via Ostiense 106 (Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; €4.50, €8.50 for Capitoline Museums as well, valid 7 days), a former electricity generating station which was requisitioned to display the cream of the Capitoline Museums’ sculpture while the main buildings were being renovated. It became so popular that it’s now a permanent outpost, attracting visitors to the formerly industrial area of Ostiense. The huge rooms of the power station are ideally suited to showing ancient sculpture, although the massive turbines and furnaces have a fascination of their own, and more than compete for your attention. Among many compelling objects are the head, feet and an arm from a colossal statue, once 8m high, found in Largo Argentina; a large Roman copy of Athena; a fragmented mosaic of hunting scenes; and an amazingly naturalistic statue of a girl seated on a stool with her legs crossed, from the third century BC. There’s also a figure of Hercules and, next to it, the soft Muse Polymnia, the former braced for activity, the latter leaning on a rock and staring thoughtfully into the distance.
San Paolo fuori le Mura
Some 2km south of the Porta San Paolo, the basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura (daily: summer 7am–6.30pm; winter 7am–6pm), accessible on metro line B, is one of the four patriarchal basilicas of Rome, occupying the supposed site of St Paul’s tomb, where he was laid to rest after being beheaded nearby. Of the four, this basilica has probably fared the least well over the years, and a devastating fire in 1823 means that the church you see now is largely a nineteenth-century reconstruction. For all that, it’s a very successful rehash of the former church, and it’s impossible not to be awed by the space of the building inside. Some parts of the building did survive the fire. In the south transept, the paschal candlestick is a remarkable piece of Romanesque carving, supported by half-human beasts and rising through entwined tendrils and strangely human limbs and bodies to scenes from Christ’s life. The bronze aisle doors date from 1070 and were also rescued from the old basilica, as was the thirteenth-century tabernacle by Arnolfo di Cambio. The arch across the apse is original, too, embellished with mosaics donated by the Byzantine queen Galla Placidia in the sixth century. There’s also the cloister, just behind here – probably Rome’s finest piece of Cosmatesque work, its spiralling, mosaic-encrusted columns enclosing a peaceful rose garden.
Via Appia Antica and the catacombs
Starting at the Porta San Sebastiano, the Via Appia Antica (or Appian Way) is the most famous of Rome’s consular roads that used to strike out in every direction from the ancient city. It was built by one Appio Claudio in 312 BC, and is the only Roman landmark mentioned in the Bible. During classical times it was the most important of all the Roman trade routes, carrying supplies through Campania to the port of Bríndisi, and it remains an important part of early Christian Rome, its verges lined with numerous pagan and Christian sites, including most famously the underground burial cemeteries or catacombs of the first Christians. The best way to get to Via Appia Antica is by bus – take #118 from Piazzale Ostiense, #218 from Piazza Porta San Giovanni or #660 from Colli Albani metro station (on line A). Alternatively, take the private Archeobus service.
About 500m from Porta San Sebastiano, where the road forks, the church of Domine Quo Vadis is the first obvious sight on Via Appia. Legend has it this is where St Peter had a vision of Christ fleeing from Rome and asked “Where goest thou, Lord?” (Domine quo vadis?), to which Christ replied that he was going to be crucified once more, leading Peter to turn around and accept his fate. The small church is ordinary enough inside, except for its replica of a piece of marble that is said to be marked with the footprints of Christ (the original is in the church of San Sebastiano).
The catacombs
Continuing on for 1km or so, the Catacombs of San Callisto (Thurs–Tues 9am–noon & 2–5pm; €5) are the largest of Rome’s catacombs, founded in the second century AD; many of the early popes (of whom St Callisto was one) are buried here. The site also features some well-preserved seventh- and eighth-century frescoes, and the crypt of Santa Cecilia, who was buried here after her martyrdom, before being shifted to the church dedicated to her in Trastevere.
The Catacombs of San Sebastiano, 500m further on (Mon–Sat 8.30am–noon & 2.30–5pm; €5), are situated under a basilica that was originally built by Constantine on the spot where the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul are said to have been laid for a time. Tours take in paintings of doves and fish, a contemporary carved oil lamp and inscriptions dating the tombs themselves. The most striking features, however, are not Christian at all, but three pagan tombs (one painted, two stuccoed) discovered when archeologists were burrowing beneath the floor of the basilica upstairs.
Trastevere and the Janiculum Hill
Across the river from the centre of town, on the right bank of the Tiber, the district of Trastevere was the artisan area of the city in classical times, neatly placed for the trade that came upriver from Ostia to be unloaded nearby. Outside the city walls, Trastevere (the name means “across the Tiber”) was for centuries heavily populated by immigrants, and this separation lent the neighbourhood a strong identity that lasted well into the twentieth century. Nowadays it’s a long way from the working-class quarter it used to be, often thronged with tourists, lured by the charm of its narrow streets and closeted squares. However, it is among the most pleasant places to stroll in Rome, particularly peaceful in the morning, lively come the evening, as dozens of trattorias set tables out along the cobbled streets, and still buzzing late at night when its bars and clubs provide a focus for one of Rome’s most dynamic night-time scenes.
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere
One of Trastevere’s most intriguing attractions is the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (daily 9.30am–1pm & 4–6.30pm), whose antiseptic eighteenth-century appearance belies its historical associations. A church was originally built here over the site of the second-century home of St Cecilia, whose husband Valerian was executed for refusing to worship Roman gods and who herself was subsequently persecuted for Christian beliefs. The story has it that Cecilia was locked in the caldarium of her own baths for several days but refused to die, singing her way through the ordeal (Cecilia is patron saint of music). Her head was finally half hacked off with an axe, though it took several blows before she finally succumbed. Below the high altar, Stefano Maderno’s limp statue of the saint shows her incorruptible body as it was found when exhumed in 1599, with three deep cuts in her neck. Downstairs, excavations of the baths and the rest of the Roman house are on view in the crypt, but more alluring by far is the singing gallery above the nave (Mon–Sat 10.15am–12.15pm, Sun 11.15am–12.15pm; €2.50; ring the bell to the left of the church door to get in), where Pietro Cavallini’s late thirteenth-century fresco of the Last Judgement – all that remains of the decoration that once covered the entire church – is a powerful, amazingly naturalistic piece of work for its time.
Porta Portese flea market
Trastevere at its most disreputable but also most characteristic can be witnessed on Sunday, when the Porta Portese flea market stretches down from the Porta Portese gate down Via Portuense to Trastevere train station in a congested medley of antiques, old motor spares, cheap clothing, household goods, bric-a-brac, antiques and assorted junk. It starts around 7am, and you should come early if you want to buy, or even move – most of the bargains, not to mention the stolen goods, have gone by 10am, by which time the crush of people can be intense. It’s pretty much all over by lunchtime.
Santa Maria in Trastevere
The heart of Trastevere is Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, a large square that takes its name from the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in its northwest corner (daily 7am–9pm). This is thought to have been the first Christian place of worship in Rome, built on a site where a fountain of oil is said to have sprung on the day of Christ’s birth, and the church’s mosaics are among the city’s most impressive, Byzantine-inspired works in the apse depicting a solemn yet sensitive parade of saints thronged around Christ and Mary, while underneath a series of panels shows scenes from the life of the Virgin by the painter Pietro Cavallini. Beneath the high altar on the right, an inscription – “FONS OLEI” – marks the spot where the oil is supposed to have sprung up.
Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Corsini
Cutting north through the backstreets towards the Tiber, you’ll come to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte di Palazzo Corsini at Via della Lungara 10 (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €4), an unexpected cultural attraction on this side of the river. It’s a relatively small collection, and only takes up a few rooms of the giant palace, which was a fitting final home for Queen Christina of Sweden, who renounced Protestantism and with it the Swedish throne in 1655, bringing her library and fortune to Rome, to the delight of the Chigi pope, Alexander VII. Among the highlights are works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Guido Reni and Caravaggio, and the curious Corsini Throne, thought to be a Roman copy of an Etruscan throne of the second or first century. Cut out of marble, its back is carved with warriors in armour and helmets, below which is a boar hunt, with wild boars the size of horses pursued by hunters.
Villa Farnesina
Across the road from the Palazzo Corsini is the Villa Farnesina (Mon–Sat & 1st Sun of the month 9am–1pm; €5), built during the early sixteenth century for the banker Agostino Chigi, and one of the earliest Renaissance villas, with opulent rooms decorated with frescoes by some of the masters of the period. Most people come to view the Raphael-designed painting Cupid and Psyche in the now glassed-in loggia, completed in 1517 by the artist’s assistants. The painter and art historian Vasari claims Raphael didn’t complete the work because his infatuation with his mistress – “La Fornarina”, whose father’s bakery was situated nearby – was making it difficult to concentrate. Nonetheless it’s mightily impressive: a flowing, animated work bursting with muscular men and bare-bosomed women. He did, however, apparently manage to finish the Galatea in the room next door, whose bucolic country scenes are interspersed with Galatea on her scallop-shell chariot and a giant head once said to have been painted by Michelangelo in one of the lunettes. The ceiling illustrates Chigi’s horoscope constellations, frescoed by the architect of the building, Peruzzi, who also decorated the upstairs Salone delle Prospettive, where trompe l’oeil balconies give views onto contemporary Rome – one of the earliest examples of the technique.
The Janiculum Hill
It’s about a fifteen-minute walk up Via Garibaldi from the centre of Trastevere to the summit of the Janiculum Hill – not one of the original seven hills of Rome, but the one with the best and most accessible views of the centre. Follow Vicolo del Cedro from Via della Scala and take the steps up from the end, cross the main road, and continue on the steps that lead up the hill to the Passeggiata del Gianicolo and then to Piazzale Garibaldi. Just below here is the spot from which a cannon is fired at noon each day for Romans to check their watches, and spread out before you are some of the best views in Rome, taking in pretty much the whole of the city.
Villa Borghese and north
Immediately above Piazza del Popolo, the Pincio Gardens were laid out by Valadier in the early nineteenth century, and, fringed with dilapidated busts of classical and Italian heroes, give fine views over the roofs, domes and TV antennae of central Rome, right across to St Peter’s and the Janiculum Hill. It’s also a good place to rent bikes and trikes to tour Rome’s largest central open space, the Villa Borghese, which lies just beyond, and whose woods, lakes and lawns offer respite from the bustle of the city centre, and any number of attractions – including some of the city’s finest museums – for those who want to do more than just stroll or sunbathe.
Galleria Borghese
On the far eastern edge of the Villa Borghese park, the wonderful Galleria Borghese (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €10.50; pre-booked visits obligatory at least a day in advance on 06.32.810 or www.ticketeria.it) was built in the early seventeenth century by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, and turned over to the state in 1902. Today it’s one of Rome’s great treasure-houses of art and should not be missed.
The ground floor
The ground floor contains mainly sculpture: a mixture of ancient Roman items and seventeenth-century works, roughly linked together with late eighteenth-century ceiling paintings showing scenes from the Trojan War. Highlights include, in the first room off the entrance hall, Canova’s famously erotic statue Paolina Borghese – sister of Napoleon and married (reluctantly) to the reigning Prince Borghese – posed as Venus. Next door, there’s a marvellous statue of David by Bernini, the face of which is a self-portrait of the sculptor, and, further on, a dramatic, poised statue of Apollo and Daphne that captures the split second when Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree, with her fingers becoming leaves and her legs tree-trunks. Next door, the Room of the Emperors has another Bernini sculpture, The Rape of Persephone, dating from 1622, a coolly virtuosic work that shows in melodramatic form the story of the abduction to the underworld of the beautiful nymph Persephone. Finally, the so-called Room of Silenus contains a variety of paintings by Cardinal Scipione’s protege Caravaggio, notably the Madonna of the Grooms from 1605, a painting that at the time was considered to have depicted Christ far too realistically to hang in a central Rome church. Look also at St Jerome, captured writing at a table lit only by a source of light that streams in from the upper left of the picture, and his David holding the head of Goliath, sent by Caravaggio to Cardinal Scipione from exile in Malta, where he had fled to escape capital punishment for various crimes, and perhaps the last painting he ever did.
The first floor
The upstairs gallery is one of the richest small collections of paintings in the world. In the first room are several important paintings by Raphael, including his Deposition, painted in 1507 for a noble of Perugia in memory of her son. Look out also for Lady with a Unicorn and Portrait of a Man by Perugino, and a copy of the artist’s tired-out Julius II, painted in the last year of the pope’s life, 1513. In further rooms there are more early sixteenth-century paintings; prominent works include Cranach’s Venus and Cupid with a Honeycomb, Lorenzo Lotto’s touching Portrait of a Man, and in the opposite direction a series of self-portraits by Bernini at various stages of his long life. Next to these are a lifelike bust of Cardinal Scipione executed by Bernini in 1632, and a smaller bust of Pope Paul V, also by Bernini. Beyond here, in a further room, is a painting of Diana by Domechino, depicting the goddess and her attendants doing a bit of target practice, and Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, painted in 1514 when he was about 25 years old, to celebrate the marriage of the Venetian noble Niccolò Aurelio.
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
The Villa Borghese’s two other major museums are situated on the other side of the park, about 1km away along the Viale delle Belle Arti, and of these, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, at no. 131 (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €9), is probably the least compulsory – a lumbering, Neoclassical building housing a collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian paintings and a few foreign artists. The nineteenth-century collection, on the lower floor, mostly contains the work of the Macchiaioli School of Tuscan impressionists, as well as paintings by Courbet, Cézanne and Van Gogh, while the twentieth-century collection upstairs includes work by Modigliani, De Chirico, Giacomo Balla, Boccioni and the Futurists, along with the odd Mondrian and Klimt; there are also some postwar canvases by the likes of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly, who has lived in Rome for much of his life.
Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia
A harmonious collection of courtyards, loggias, gardens and temples put together in a playful Mannerist style for Pope Julius III in the mid-sixteenth century, the Villa Giulia now houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia (Tues–Sun 8.30am–7.30pm; €4), the world’s primary collection of Etruscan treasures (along with the Etruscan collection in the Vatican). Not much is known about the Etruscans, but they were a creative and civilized people, evidenced here by a wealth of sensual sculpture, jewellery and art. The most famous exhibit, in the octagonal room in the east wing, is the remarkable Sarcophagus of the Married Couple (dating from the sixth century BC) from Cerveteri – a touchingly lifelike portrayal of a husband and wife lying on a couch. Look also at the delicate and beautiful cistae, drum-like objects, engraved and adorned with figures, which were supposed to hold all the things needed for the care of the body after death. In the same room are marvellously intricate pieces of gold jewellery, delicately worked into tiny horses, birds, camels and other animals, as well as mirrors, candelabra, religious statues and tools used in everyday life, including a realistic bronze statuette of a ploughman at work. Further on you’ll find a drinking horn in the shape of a dog’s head that is so lifelike you almost expect it to bark; a holmos, or small table, to which the maker attached 24 little pendants around the edge; and a bronze disc breastplate from the seventh century BC decorated with a weird, almost modern abstract pattern of galloping creatures.
MAXXI
A ten-minute tram journey north of Piazza del Popolo, MAXXI, at Via Guido Reni 4/A (Tues–Sun 11am–7pm, Thurs until 10pm; €11; www.maxxi.beniculturali.it), opened to much fanfare in 2010 in a landmark building by the Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid – a great modern accompaniment to Renzo Piano’s nearby Auditorium complex. Built around a former military barracks, it’s primarily a venue for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art and architecture (though it does have small collections of its own), but the building, a simultaneously jagged and curvy affair, is worth a visit in its own right, with its long, unravelling galleries and a towering lobby encompassing the inevitable café and bookstore.
The Auditorium
Five minutes’ walk from MAXXI (or take bus #M from Termini), Rome’s Auditorium (daily 10am–6pm; free; 06.80.242, www.auditorium.com) is a complex of three concert halls, designed by everyone’s favourite Italian architect, Renzo Piano. Each concert hall is conceived and designed for a different kind of musical performance: the smallest, the Sala Petrassi on the right side, accommodates 700 people and is designed for chamber concerts, the middle Sala Sinopoli holds 1200, while the largest of the three, the eastern Sala Santa Cecilia, can seat 2700 listening to big symphonic works, and is home to Rome’s flagship Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia. You can walk right round the building outside, exploring the Parco della Musica, as it’s known. The main entrance is on Via Pietro de Coubertin, where there’s a great book and CD shop and decent café, or you can cut through to the complex from Viale Maresciallo Pilsudski, where there’s a children’s playground.
The Vatican
Situated on the west bank of the Tiber, just across from the city centre, the Vatican City was established as a sovereign state in 1929, a tiny territory surrounded by high walls on its far western side and on the near side opening its doors to the rest of the city and its pilgrims in the form of St Peter’s and its colonnaded piazza. The city-state’s one thousand inhabitants have their own radio station, daily newspaper, postal service, and indeed security service in the colourfully dressed Swiss Guards. It’s believed that St Peter was buried in a pagan cemetery on the Vatican hill, giving rise to the building of a basilica to venerate his name and the siting of the headquarters of the Catholic Church here. St Peter’s is obviously one of the highlights, but the only part of the Vatican Palace itself that you can visit independently is the Vatican Museums – quite simply, the largest, richest, most compelling and perhaps most exhausting museum complex in the world.
Castel Sant’Angelo
The great circular hulk of the Castel Sant’Angelo (Tues–Sun 9am–6.30pm; €8.50) marks the edge of the Vatican, designed and built by Hadrian as his own mausoleum. Renamed in the sixth century, when Pope Gregory the Great witnessed a vision of St Michael here that ended a terrible plague, the papal authorities converted the building for use as a fortress and built a passageway to link it with the Vatican as a refuge in times of siege or invasion.
Inside, a spiral ramp leads up into the centre of the mausoleum, over a drawbridge, to the main level at the top, where a small palace was built to house the papal residents in appropriate splendour. Pope Paul III had some especially fine renovations made, including the beautiful Sala Paolina, whose gilded ceiling displays the Farnese family arms. You’ll also notice Paul III’s personal motto, Festina Lenta (“make haste slowly”), scattered throughout the ceilings and in various corners of all his rooms. Elsewhere, the rooms hold swords, armour, guns and the like, while others are lavishly decorated with grotesques and paintings (don’t miss the bathroom of Clement VII on the second floor, with its prototype hot and cold water taps and mildly erotic frescoes). Below are dungeons and storerooms that can be glimpsed from the spiralling ramp, testament to the castle’s grisly past as the city’s most notorious Renaissance prison. The quiet café upstairs offers one of the best views of Rome and excellent coffee.
Piazza San Pietro
Perhaps the most famous of Rome’s many piazzas, Bernini’s Piazza San Pietro doesn’t disappoint, although its size isn’t really apparent until you’re right on top of it, its colonnade arms symbolically welcoming the world into the lap of the Catholic Church. The obelisk in the centre was brought to Rome by Caligula in 36 AD, and was moved here in 1586, when Sixtus V ordered that it be erected in front of the basilica, a task that took four months and was apparently done in silence, on pain of death. The matching fountains on either side are the work of Carlo Maderno (on the right) and Bernini (on the left). In between the obelisk and each fountain, a circular stone set into the pavement marks the focal points of an ellipse, from which the four rows of columns on the perimeter of the piazza line up perfectly, making the colonnade appear to be supported by a single line of columns.
St Peter’s
The Basilica di San Pietro, better known to many as St Peter’s (daily: April–Sept 7am–7pm; Oct–March 7am–6pm), is the principal shrine of the Catholic Church, built on the site of St Peter’s tomb, and worked on by the greatest Italian architects of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the channels on the right side of the piazza funnels you into the basilica (the other two lead to the underground grottoes or the ascent to the dome – see The interior). Bear in mind that whichever you opt for first, you need to be properly dressed to enter, which means no bare knees or shoulders – a rule that is very strictly enforced.
The interior
Going straight into the church, the first thing you see is Michelangelo’s graceful Pietà on the right, completed when he was just 24. Following an attack by a vandal, it sits behind glass, strangely remote from the life of the rest of the building. Further into the church, the dome is breathtakingly imposing, rising high above the supposed site of St Peter’s tomb. With a diameter of 41.5 metres it is Rome’s largest dome, supported by four enormous piers, decorated with reliefs depicting the basilica’s “major relics”: St Veronica’s handkerchief, which was used to wipe the face of Christ; the lance of St Longinus, which pierced Christ’s side; and a piece of the True Cross. On the right side of the nave, the bronze statue of St Peter is another of the most venerated monuments in the basilica, its right foot polished smooth by the attentions of pilgrims. Bronze was also the material used in Bernini’s wild spiralling baldacchino, a massive 26m high, cast out of 927 tonnes of metal removed from the Pantheon roof in 1633. Bernini’s feverish sculpting decorates the apse, too, his bronze Cattedra enclosing the chair of St Peter, though more interesting is his monument to Alexander VII in the south transept, with its winged skeleton struggling underneath the heavy marble drapes, upon which the Chigi pope is kneeling in prayer.
The treasury and grottoes
An entrance off the aisle leads to the treasury (daily: summer 8am–6pm; winter 7am–5pm; €6), which has among many riches the late fifteenth-century bronze tomb of Pope Sixtus IV by Pollaiuolo. The grottoes (daily: summer 9am–6pm; winter 9am–5pm), which you can opt to visit first outside, emerging in the basilica at the central crossing, is where a good number of popes are buried, including the last one, John Paul II.
The roof and dome
Also accessible by one of three main outside entrances, the ascent to the roof and dome (daily: May–Sept 8am–6pm; Oct–April 8am–5pm; €7 with lift, €4 using the stairs) is well worth making. The views from the gallery around the interior of the dome give you a sense of the enormity of the church, and from there you can make the (challenging) ascent to the lantern at the top of the dome, from which the views over the city are as glorious as you’d expect.
The Vatican Museums
However much you may have enjoyed Rome’s other museums, nothing else in the city quite measures up to the Vatican Museums, on Viale Vaticano, a fifteen-minute walk from St Peter’s out of the north side of Piazza San Pietro (Mon–Sat 9am–6pm, last entrance at 4pm; last Sun of each month 9am–2pm, last entrance at 12.30pm; closed public and religious holidays; €15, €8 under-18s and under-26s with student ID, €4 extra for all tickets pre-booked online, last Sun of the month free; audioguides €6; www.vatican.va). So much booty from the city’s history has ended up here, from both classical and later times, and so many of the Renaissance’s finest artists were in the employ of the pope, that not surprisingly the result is a set of museums stuffed with enough exhibits to put most other European collections to shame.
The Vatican Museums: planning a visit
As its name suggests, the complex actually holds a series of museums on very diverse subjects – displays of classical statuary, Renaissance painting, Etruscan relics, Egyptian artefacts, not to mention the furnishings and decoration of the building itself. There’s no point in trying to see everything, at least not on one visit, and the only features you really shouldn’t miss are the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. Above all, decide how long you want to spend here, and what you want to see, before you start; you could spend anything from an hour to a whole day here, and it’s easy to collapse from museum fatigue before you’ve even got to your most important target of interest. Also, bear in mind that the collections are in a constant state of restoration, and are often closed and shifted around with little or no notice – so check www.vatican.va for the current situation.
Museo Pio-Clementino
To the left of the entrance, the Museo Pio-Clementino is home to some of the best of the Vatican’s classical statuary, including two statues that influenced Renaissance artists more than any others, the serene Apollo Belvedere, a Roman copy of a fourth-century-BC original, and the first-century-BC Laocoön, which shows a Trojan priest being crushed by serpents for warning of the danger of the Trojan horse – perhaps the most famous classical statue ever. There are also busts and statues of the Roman emperors, fantastic Roman floor mosaics, and the so-called Venus of Cnidos, the first known representation of the goddess.
Museo Gregoriano Egizio
The Museo Gregoriano Egizio isn’t one of the Vatican’s main highlights, but it has a distinguished collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts, including some vividly painted mummy cases (and two mummies), along with canopi, the alabaster vessels into which the entrails of the deceased were placed. There’s also a partial reconstruction of the Temple of Serapis from Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, along with another statue of his lover, Antinous, who drowned close to the original temple in Egypt and so inspired Hadrian to build his replica.
Museo Gregoriano Etrusco
The Museo Gregoriano Etrusco holds sculpture, funerary art and applied art from the sites of southern Etruria – a good complement to Rome’s specialist Etruscan collection in the Villa Giulia. Especially worth seeing are the finds from the Regolini-Galassi tomb, from the seventh century BC, discovered near Cerveteri, which contained the remains of three Etruscan nobles, two men and a woman; the breastplate of the woman and her huge fibia (clasp) are of gold. There’s also armour, a bronze bedstead, a funeral chariot and a wagon, as well as a great number of enormous storage jars, in which food, oil and wine were stored for use in the afterlife.
Galleria dei Candelabri and Galleria degli Arazzi
Outside the Etruscan Museum, a large monumental staircase leads back down to the Galleria dei Candelabri, the niches of which are adorned with huge candelabra taken from imperial Roman villas, and the Galleria degli Arazzi (Gallery of Tapestries), with Belgian tapestries to designs by the school of Raphael.
Galleria delle Carte Geografiche
Next, the Galleria delle Carte Geografiche (Gallery of Maps), which is as long as the previous two galleries put together, was decorated in the late sixteenth century at the behest of Pope Gregory XIII to show all of Italy, the major islands in the Mediterranean and the papal possessions in France, as well as large-scale maps of the maritime republics of Venice and Genoa.
The Raphael Rooms
The Raphael Rooms formed the private apartments of Pope Julius II, and when he moved in here he commissioned Raphael to redecorate them in a style more in tune with the times. Raphael died in 1520 before the scheme was complete, but the two rooms that were painted by him, as well as others completed by pupils, stand as one of the highlights of the Renaissance. The Stanza di Eliodoro, the first room you come to, was painted by three of Raphael’s students five years after his death, and is best known for its painting the Mass of Bolsena which relates a miracle that occurred in the town in northern Lazio in the 1260s, and, on the window wall opposite, the Deliverance of St Peter, showing the saint being assisted in a jail-break by the Angel of the Lord. The other main room, the Stanza della Segnatura or Pope’s Study, was painted in the years 1508–11, when Raphael first came to Rome, and comes close to the peak of the painter’s art. The School of Athens, on the near wall as you come in, steals the show, a representation of the triumph of scientific truth in which all the great minds from antiquity are represented. It pairs with the Disputation of the Sacrament opposite, which is a reassertion of religious dogma – an allegorical mass of popes, cardinals, bishops, doctors and even the poet Dante.
The Appartamento Borgia
Outside the Raphael Rooms, the Appartamento Borgia was inhabited by Julius II’s hated predecessor, Alexander VI, and is nowadays host to a large collection of modern religious art, although its ceiling frescoes, the work of Pinturicchio in the years 1492–95, are really the main reason to visit.
The Sistine Chapel
Steps lead from the Raphael Rooms to the Sistine Chapel, a huge barn-like structure that serves as the pope’s official private chapel and the scene of the conclaves of cardinals for the election of each new pontiff. The ceiling frescoes here, and painting of the Last Judgement on the altar wall, are probably the most viewed paintings in the world: it’s estimated that on an average day about 15,000 people trudge through here to take a look. It’s useful to carry a pair of binoculars with you to view the ceiling, but bear in mind that photography is strictly prohibited and it’s also officially forbidden to speak – a rule that is rampantly ignored.
The walls of the chapel were decorated by several prominent painters of the Renaissance – Pinturicchio, Perugino, Botticelli and Ghirlandaio. Recently restored, they would be a massive highlight anywhere else. As it is, they are entirely overshadowed by Michelangelo’s more famous ceiling frescoes, commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508. They depict scenes from the Old Testament, from the Creation of Light at the altar end to the Drunkenness of Noah over the door. Entering from behind the altar, you are supposed, as you look up, to imagine that you are looking into heaven through the arches of the fictive architecture that springs from the sides of the chapel, supported by little putti caryatids and ignudi or nudes. Look at the pagan sibyls and biblical prophets which Michelangelo also incorporated in his scheme – some of the most dramatic figures in the entire work, and all clearly labelled by the painter, from the sensitive figure of the Delphic Sybil, to the hag-like Cumaean Sybil. Look out, too, for the figure of the prophet Jeremiah – a brooding self-portrait of an exhausted-looking Michelangelo.
The Last Judgement, on the altar wall of the chapel, was painted by the artist more than twenty years later. Michelangelo wasn’t especially keen to work on this either, but Pope Paul III, an old acquaintance, was eager to complete the decoration of the chapel. The painting took five years, again single-handed, and is probably the most inspired and homogeneous large-scale painting you’re ever likely to see, the technical virtuosity of Michelangelo taking a back seat to the sheer exuberance of the work. The centre is occupied by Christ, turning angrily as he gestures the condemned to the underworld. St Peter, carrying his gold and silver keys, looks on in astonishment, while Mary averts her eyes from the scene. Below Christ a group of angels blast their trumpets to summon the dead from their sleep. On the left, the dead awaken from graves, tombs and sarcophagi and are levitating into the heavens or being pulled by ropes and the napes of their necks by angels who take them before Christ. At the bottom right, Charon, keeper of the underworld, swings his oar at the damned souls as they fall off the boat into the waiting gates of hell.
The Braccio Nuovo and Museo Chiaramonti
The Braccio Nuovo and Museo Chiaramonti both hold classical sculpture, although be warned that they are the Vatican at its most overwhelming – close on a thousand statues crammed into two long galleries. The Braccio Nuovo was built in the early 1800s to display classical statuary that was particularly prized, and it contains, among other things, probably the most famous extant image of Augustus, and a bizarre-looking statue depicting the Nile, whose yearly flooding was essential to the fertility of the Egyptian soil. The 300-metre-long Chiaramonti gallery is especially unnerving, lined as it is with the chill marble busts of hundreds of nameless, blank-eyed ancient Romans, along with the odd deity. It pays to have a leisurely wander, for there are some real characters here: sour, thin-lipped matrons; kids, caught in a sulk or mid-chortle; and ancient old men with flesh sagging and wrinkling.
The Pinacoteca
The Pinacoteca is housed in a separate building on the far side of the Vatican Museums’ main spine and ranks highly among Rome’s picture galleries, with works from the early to High Renaissance right up to the nineteenth century. Among early works is the stunning Simoneschi triptych by Giotto, the Martyrdom of Sts Peter and Paul, painted in the early 1300s for the old St Peter’s, works by Masolino, Fra’ Angelico and Fra’ Filippo Lippi, and Melozzo da Forlì’s musical angels – fragments of a fresco commissioned for the church of Santi Apostoli. Further on are the rich backdrops and elegantly clad figures of the Umbrian School painters, Perugino and Pinturicchio. Raphael has a room to himself, where you’ll find his Transfiguration, which he had nearly completed when he died in 1520, the Coronation of the Virgin, painted when he was only 19 years old, and, on the left, the Madonna of Foglino, showing Sts John the Baptist, Francis of Assisi and Jerome. Leonardo’s St Jerome, in the next room, is a remarkable piece of work with the saint a rake-like ascetic torn between suffering and a good meal, while Caravaggio’s Descent from the Cross, in the next room but one, is a warts-and-all canvas that unusually shows the Virgin Mary as a middle-aged mother grieving over her dead son. Take a look also at the most gruesome painting in the collection, Poussin’s Martyrdom of St Erasmus, which shows the saint stretched out on a table with his hands bound above his head in the process of having his small intestine wound onto a drum – basically being “drawn” prior to “quartering”.
The musei Gregoriano Profano, Pio Cristiano and Missionario Etnologico
Next door to the Pinacoteca, the Museo Gregoriano Profano holds more classical sculpture, mounted on scaffolds for all-round viewing, and the adjacent Museo Pio Cristiano has intricate, early Christian sarcophagi. Below these, the Museo Missionario Etnologico displays art and artefacts from the Far East, collected by Catholic missionaries.
Eating and drinking
Rome is a great place to eat: its denizens know a good deal about freshness and authenticity, and can be very demanding when it comes to the quality of the dishes they are served. Most city-centre restaurants offer standard Italian menus, with the emphasis on traditional Roman dishes, although a few more adventurous places have been popping up of late; plus there are numerous establishments dedicated to a variety of regional cuisines. The city is also blessed with an abundance of good pizzerias, churning out thin, crispy-baked Roman pizza from wood-fired ovens. The eating and drinking listings below are marked on the mapsRome, Central Rome and see Centro Storico.
Coffee and snacks
Rome has plenty of places in which to refuel during a long day’s sightseeing, and it’s easy to find places that aren’t just targeted at tourists. Most bars sell panini and sandwiches (tramezzini), and there are plenty of stand-up rosticerrie for roast chicken and the like. The following are some of our favourite places for a good-quality, unpretentious lunch or snack.
Centro storico
La Caffeteria Piazza di Pietra 65. Great Neapolitan café that imports its pastries daily from Naples. The coffee is among Rome’s best. Daily 7.30am–10pm.
Lo Zozzone Via del Teatro Pace 32. This Rome legend, just around the corner from Piazza Navona and with outside seating, serves the best pizza bianca in town, by general consent – as well as lots of delicious pizza al taglio choices. Moln–Fri 9am–9pm, Sat 10am–11pm.
Sant’Eustachio Piazza Sant’Eustachio 82. The home of what many consider to be Rome’s best coffee, roasted on the premises and perennially popular. Nice coffee-based sweets and cakes too. Daily 8am–1am.
Campo de’ Fiori and the Ghetto
Bernasconi Piazza Cairoli 16. Great, long-established pasticceria and café with sfogiatelle (flaky, custard-filled pastries) to die for, as well as a host of other goodies. Tues–Sun 7am–8.30pm.
Il Forno di Campo de’ Fiori Campo de’ Fiori 22. This bakery on the corner of Campo de’ Fiori does all sorts of goodies, including fantastic pizza al taglio. Mon–Sat 7.30am–2.30pm & 4.30–8pm.
The Tridente
Ciampini Viale Trinità dei Monti. Across the road from the French Academy, this is a café, good for coffee and snacks in the morning and at lunchtime, but a restaurant too, with a great setting in an enclosed garden overlooking the roofs and domes below. There are pasta dishes and salads for €10–12, as well as fish, steaks and chicken from the grill. A good place for kids, who can watch the turtles playing in the fountain between courses. Daily 8am–midnight.
The Esquline, Monti and Termini
Antico Caffé di Brasile Via dei Serpenti 23. Reliable old Monti stand-by that has been selling great coffee, sandwiches, snacks and cakes for over a century. Mon–Sat 6am–8.30pm, Sun 7am–7pm.
Dagnino Galleria Esedra, Via E. Orlando 75. Good for both a coffee and snack or light lunch, this long-established Sicilian bakery is a peaceful retreat in the Termini area, with tables outside on a small shopping arcade. Daily 7.30am–10.30pm.
La Bottega del Caffè Piazza Madonna dei Monti 5. Bang in the heart of Monti, this is a good place for breakfast or a lunchtime snack, with tables outside on this peaceful square. Daily 8am–2am.
Testaccio
Volpetti Più Via A. Volta 8. This Testaccio tavola calda is attached to the famous deli of the same name, around the corner at Via Marmorata 47. It serves pizza, chicken, supplì (breaded rice balls) – all the usual classics. Mon–Sat 10.30am–3.30pm & 5.30–9.30pm.
Trastevere
La Renella Via del Moro 15. Arguably the best bakery in Rome, right in the heart of Trastevere, with great focaccia and superb pizza al taglio. Takeaway or eat on the premises at its long counter. Daily 7am–10pm.
Sisini Via San Francesco a Ripa 137. Hole-in-the-wall pizzeria that does great slices, as well as roast chicken and potatoes, supplì and all the usual rosticceria fare. Mon–Sat 9am–10.30pm.
Villa Borghese and north
Gianfornaio Piazzale Ponte Milvio 35/37. Just across the ancient Ponte Milvio, this is the place for a snack lunch if you’re visiting the Auditorium or MAXXI, with great pizza al taglio and lots of other goodies. Mon–Sat noon–11pm.
The Vatican and Prati
Mondo Arancina Via Marcanonio Colonna 38. Great pizza al taglio, but the real treats here are the arancini – deep-fried rice balls – which come in lots of varieties, all delicious and just €2 each. Daily 10am–midnight.
Non Solo Pizza Via degli Scipioni 95–97. Great pizza by the slice as well as a host of hot food – supplì, stuffed olives, fiori di zucca, potato croquettes and porchetta skewers. Tues–Sun 8.30am–10pm.
Ice cream and fruit shakes
Alberto Pica Via della Seggiola 12. Long-running and award-winning Campo de’ Fiori area favourite with lots of unusual flavours. The place to try rice-pudding ice cream if you’ve ever fancied it. Mon–Sat 8.30am–2pm, Sun 4.30pm–2am.
Alla Scala Via della Scala 51. This Sicilian-owned Trastevere joint has some of the very best ice cream in town, with unusual flavours such as cinnamon and cassata. The amarena (black cherry) and coconut are also great. Daily 1pm–midnight, until 1am on Sat & Sun.
Giolitti Via Uffici del Vicario 40. An Italian institution that once had a reputation – now lost – for the country’s top ice cream. Still pretty good, however, with a choice of seventy flavours. Always very busy. Tues–Sun 7am–2am.
Old Bridge Via Bastioni di Michelangelo 5. Generous helpings at this long-standing Vatican area favourite, Famous for its chocolate, coffee and Nutella flavours, but most of all for the size of its portions. Daily 10am–2am.
Pascucci Via di Torre Argentina 20. This tiny stand-up centro storico bar is frullati central. Your choice of fresh fruit whipped up with ice and milk – the ultimate Roman refreshment on a hot day. Mon–Fri 6.30am–midnight, Sat 6.30am–12.30am, Sun 10am–midnight.
San Crispino Via della Panetteria 42. Not far from the Trevi Fountain, this is considered by many to make the best ice cream in Rome. Other branches in the centro storico at Piazza Maddalena 3, by the Pantheon, and at Via Acaia 56 in San Giovanni. Daily noon–12.30am, Fri & Sat until 1.30am; closed Tues in autumn and winter.
Restaurants and pizzerias
There are lots of good restaurants in the centro storico, and it’s surprisingly easy to find places that are not tourist traps – prices in all but the really swanky restaurants remain pretty uniform throughout the city. The area around Via Cavour and Termini is packed with inexpensive places, although some of them are of dubious cleanliness; if you’re not in a hurry, you might do better heading to the nearby student area of San Lorenzo, where you can often eat far better for the same money. South of the centre, the Testaccio neighbourhood is also well endowed with good, inexpensive trattorias, as is Trastevere, across the river, Rome’s traditional restaurant enclave.
Centro storico
Armando al Pantheon Salita de’ Crescenzi 30 06.6880.3034. Unpretentious surroundings and hearty food at good prices. Closed Sat dinner & Sun.
Cul de Sac Piazza Pasquino 73 06.6880.1094. Busy, long-running wine bar and restaurant with an excellent wine list, a great city-centre location with outside seating, and decent wine-bar food – cold meats, cheeses, salads, soups and pasta and main courses too. Daily noon–4pm & 7–12.30am.
Da Francesco Piazza del Fico 29 06.686.4009. Not just delectable pizzas in this full-on pizzeria, but good antipasti, primi and secondi too. The service can be slapdash, but the food is excellent and relatively inexpensive. Mon & Wed–Sun 7pm–1am.
Da Tonino Via del Governo Vecchio 18–19 06.333.587.0779. Basic but delicious Roman food is the order of the day at this unmarked centro storico favourite. The simple pasta dishes start at €6, while the straccetti (strips of beef with rocket) are a steal at €7. The few tables fill up quickly, so come early or be prepared to queue. No credit cards. Closed Sun.
Enoteca Corsi Via del Gesù 87–88 06.679.0821. Old-fashioned trattoria and wine shop that serves up what they happen to have cooked that morning. Lunch only, and costing around €7.50 for a main course.
Gino Vicolo Rosini 4 06.687.3434. Down a small alley by the parliament building, Gino presides over his bustling restaurant with unhurried authority, serving a determinedly trad Roman menu at keen prices – pastas €5–8, mains €9–10. It’s been very much discovered by tourists, but at heart it remains a locals’ joint. Mon–Sat 1–3pm & 8–10.30pm.
Maccheroni Piazza delle Coppelle 44 06.6830.7895. Spartan yet comfortable restaurant that enjoys a perfect location on this quiet centro storico square. It serves good, basic Italian food at affordable prices. Mon–Sat 12.30–3pm & 8pm–midnight.
Trattoria Via Pozzo delle Cornacchie 25 06.6830.1247. The inside of this cool upstairs restaurant feels a million miles away from the streets of the centro storico outside, and the food makes a change too – inventive modern takes on Sicilian classics. Not cheap, but one of the better food experiences of central Rome. Mon–Fri 12.30–3.30pm & 7.30–11.30pm, Sat 7.30–11.30pm.
Trattoria Lilli Via di Tor di Nona 23 06.686.1916. One of the city centre’s best and most untouristed old-style trattorias, with a great selection of classic Roman staples, well prepared and served with gritty Roman directness. Mon–Sat 1–3pm & 8–11pm.
Campo de’ Fiori and the Ghetto
Da Sergio Via delle Grotte 27 06.686.4293. An out-of-the-way, cosy trattoria with a traditional, limited menu and the deeply authentic feel of old Rome. Outdoor seating in summer. Mon–Sat 12.30–3.30pm & 6.30pm–midnight.
Dar Filettaro a Santa Barbara Largo dei Librari 88. A fish-and-chip shop without the chips. Paper-covered Formica tables (outdoors in summer), cheap wine, beer and fried cod, a timeless Roman speciality. Mon–Sat 5–10.30pm; closed Aug.
Grappolo d’Oro Zampanó Piazza della Cancelleria 80 06.686.4118. This place has had a bit of a facelift but still remains relatively untouched by the hordes in nearby Campo de’ Fiori, and serves imaginative Roman cuisine in a traditional trattoria atmosphere at moderate prices. Mon & Wed–Sat 12.30–2.30pm & 7.30–11pm, Tues & Sun 7.30–11pm.
Osteria ar Galletto Piazza Farnese 102 06.686.1704. In spite of its location just off one of Rome’s trendiest streets and one of its trendiest piazzas, this place retains the feel of a provincial trattoria, serving good, wholesome Roman food at very decent prices. Mon–Sat 12.15–3pm & 7.15–11pm.
Piperno Monte de’ Cenci 9 06.6880.6629. This stalwart of the Jewish Ghetto is not the cheapest but is perhaps the best place for a real Roman blowout, either in its elegant dining room or on the square outside. A great place to try classics like baccalà, Roman fritti and some of the classic pasta dishes. Tues–Sat 12.45–2.20pm & 7.45–11.20pm, Sun 12.45–2.20pm.
Roscioli Via dei Giubbonari 21/22 06.687.5287. Is it a deli, a wine bar, or fully fledged restaurant? Actually it’s all three, and you can either just have a glass of wine and some cheese or go for the full menu, which has great pasta dishes and secondi at lunch and dinner. Nothing is cheap, but the carbonara is great. Mon–Sat 12.30–4pm & 6pm–midnight.
The Tridente and Quirinale
Antica Birreria Peroni Via San Marcello 19 06.679.5310. Big, bustling birreria with an excellent menu of moderately priced, simple food that’s meant to soak up lots of beer. Mon–Sat noon–midnight.
Beltramme Via della Croce 39. This very old-fashioned fiaschetteria (originally it sold only wine, by the fiasco or flask) is always packed and fairly pricey, but if you want authentic Roman food, atmosphere and service the way it used to be, this is the place. No credit cards. Daily noon–3pm & 7–11pm.
’Gusto Piazza Augusto Imperatore 9 06.322.6273. A slick establishment that’s a restaurant, pizzeria and wine bar rolled into one. Its reasonably priced Mediterranean buffet is good value for lunch at €8 a head. Daily 12.30–3pm & 7.30pm–2am.
Il Chianti Via del Lavatore 81–82/A 06.678.7550. This Tuscan restaurant and wine bar is quite a find, with good spreads of cold meats and cheeses, and full meals of pasta, pizza and beef dishes. Closed Sun.
Matricianella Via del Leone 4 06.683.2100. Handily placed just off Via del Corso, this old favourite serves classic Roman food, either in the bustling main dining-room or on the outdoor terrace. A great city-centre choice. Closed Sun.
Osteria della Frezza Via della Frezza 16 06.322.6273. Part of the ultra-successful ’Gusto empire, this place is good for snacks such as cheese or salami plates or for full meals (great pasta). Both the food and service are excellent. Daily noon–3.30pm & 7pm–12.30am.
Otello alla Concordia Via della Croce 81 06.678.1454. This place used to be one of Fellini’s favourites – he lived just a few blocks away on Via Margutta – and remains an elegant, yet affordable choice in the heart of Rome. Closed Sun.
Palatium Via Frattina 94 06.6920.2132. Cool and sleek, this wine-bar-cum-restaurant celebrates the produce of the Lazio region and Rome, with a short menu of regional specialities and a long list of Lazio wines. You can settle for just a plate of salami and cheese for €5–7 or go for mains using rabbit and sausage from the hills outside the city. Very good value. Mon–Sat 11am–11pm.
Piccolo Abruzzo Via Sicilia 237 06.4282.0176. A five-minute stroll up unprepossessing Via Sicilia from Via Veneto, this is a great alternative to the glitzy places on the Dolce Vita street, with no menu, just a seemingly endless parade of Abruzzese and other goodies plonked on your table at regular intervals. All for around €35 a head. Daily noon–4pm & 7pm–1.30am.
Recafé Piazza Augusto Imperatore 9 06.6813.4730. The entrance on Via del Corso is a Neapolitan café, while on the square you can enjoy proper Neapolitan pizzas, good pasta and salad dishes and excellent grilled secondi at moderate prices. Neapolitan sweets and fritti too. Daily 12.45pm–1am.
The Esquiline, Monti and Termini
Africa Via Gaeta 26 06.494.1077. Arguably the city’s most interesting (Ethiopian and Eritrean) food, testimony to its significant population from the region. No credit cards. Closed Mon.
Alle Carrette Via Madonna dei Monti 95 06.679.2770. This long-standing Monti pizza joint serves great thin and crispy Roman pizzas and deep-fried baccalà, and also does great desserts. It’s cheap too. Daily 8pm–midnight.
Enoteca Cavour 313 Via Cavour 313. This lovely old wine bar makes a handy retreat after seeing the ancient sites. Lots of wines and delicious (though not cheap) snacks and salads. Mon–Sat 12.45–2.45pm & 7.30pm–12.30am.
Hang Zhou Via di San Martino ai Monti 33 06.487.2732. Rome isn’t the best place to eat Chinese food but this Monti favourite is a cut above the rest, and cheap too. Daily noon–3pm & 7–midnight.
Pommidoro Piazza dei Sanniti 44 06.445.2692. This long-established family-run trattoria serves great Roman food, with a breezy open veranda in summer and a fireplace in winter. Closed Sun.
Tram Tram Via dei Reti 44–46 06.490.416. In a grungy location but cosy inside, this cool and animated San Lorenzo restaurant serves good Pugliese pasta dishes, fish and seafood and unusual salads. Tues–Sun noon–3pm & 7.30pm–midnight.
Trattoria Monti Via di San Vito 13/A 06.446.6573. Small, family-run restaurant that specializes in the cuisine of the Marche region – which means great pasta, interesting cabbage-wrapped starters and mainly meaty secondi. Very much a neighbourhood place, and moderately priced too. Tues–Sun noon–3pm & 7–11pm.
The Celian Hill and San Giovanni
Charley’s Sauciere Via San Giovanni in Laterano 270 06.7049.5666. If the background chansons don’t make you think you’re in France – albeit a mythical one from the 1930s – the menu certainly will, with lots of French classics. Moderate prices – soups and starters €8–10, mains €18 – and it’s just a five-minute walk from the Colosseum. Mon–Sat 12.30–3pm & 7.30–11pm.
Luzzi Via San Giovanni in Laterano 88 06.709.6332. Midway between San Giovanni in Laterano and the Colosseum, this bustling restaurant is a good choice amid the tourist joints of the neighbourhood. The food is hearty and simple, there’s outside seating and it’s extremely cheap – secondi go for €6–9. There are pizzas, too, but only at dinner. Closed Wed.
Taverna dei Quaranta Via Claudia 24 06.700.0550. Very relaxed locals’ joint with chequered tablecloths and good, very reasonably priced home-cooking: roast lamb, zucchini flowers, and polenta too, plus some interesting pasta dishes, on a menu that changes regularly. Primi €7–8, secondi €8–10. Only in Rome could this sort of place exist, five minutes from the tourist scrum at the Colosseum. Mon & Tues & Thurs–Sun noon–3pm & 7pm–midnight.
The Aventine and Testaccio
Da Remo Piazza Santa Maria in Liberatrice 44 06.574.6270. No-nonsense Testaccio pizzeria serving some of the crispiest thin-crust Roman pizzas you’ll find. Mon–Sat 7pm–1am.
Felice Via Mastro Giorgio 29 06.574.6800. Don’t be put off by the “riservato” signs on the tables – the owner likes to “select” his customers. Smile and make Felice understand that you’re hungry and fond of Roman cooking. Try bucatini cacio e pepe or lamb, and, in winter, artichokes. Mon–Sat 12.30–2.45pm & 8–11.30pm.
Tuttifrutti Via Luca della Robbia 3/A 06.575.7902. This Testaccio favourite is pretty much the perfect restaurant – family-run, with good food, decent prices and lots of customers. The menu changes daily, and offers interesting variations on traditional Roman dishes. Mon–Sat 7.30–11.30pm.
Trastevere
Ai Marmi Viale Trastevere 53–59 06.580.0919. Nicknamed “the mortuary” because of its stark interior and marble tables, this place serves unique “supplì al telefono” (deep-fried rice balls, so named because of the string of mozzarella it forms when you take a bite), fresh baccalà and the best pizza in Trastevere. A lively slice of the real Rome. Thurs–Tues 6.30pm–2am.
Da Augusto Piazza de Renzi 15 06.580.3798. Diner-style neighbourhood staple serving Roman basics in an unpretentious, bustling atmosphere. Good pasta and soup starters and daily meat and fish specials. Daily 12.30–3pm & 8–11pm.
Da Ivo Via di San Francesco a Ripa 158 06.581.7082. The archetypal Trastevere pizzeria, almost in danger of becoming a caricature, but still good. Arrive early to avoid a chaotic queue. Wed–Mon 6pm–midnight.
Da Lucia Vicolo del Mattonato 2 06.580.3601. Outdoor Trastevere dining in summer is at its traditional best at this wonderful old Roman trattoria. Spaghetti cacio e pepe is the speciality. Get here early for a table outside. Tues–Sun noon–3pm & 7.30–11.30pm.
Da Paris Piazza San Callisto 7/A 06.581.5378. Fine Roman Jewish cookery and other traditional dishes in one of Trastevere’s most atmospheric piazzas. Tues–Sat noon–3pm & 7.30–11.30pm, Sun 12.30–3pm.
Le Mani in Pasta Via dei Genovesi 37 06.581.6017. This small and very relaxed restaurant with an open kitchen cooks up fantastic pasta and fish dishes for moderate to expensive prices. It’s often very crowded, and it’s worth reserving to be sure of getting in. Tues–Sat 12.20–3pm & 7.30–11pm.
Villa Borghese and north
Dulcamara Via Flaminia Vecchia 449 06.333.2108. Busy place in the increasingly hip neighbourhood around Ponte Milvio. A varied menu with great soups, pasta and inventive mains.
The Vatican and Prati
Cacio e Pepe Via Avezzana 11 06.321.7268. This rough-and-ready Prati cheapie is always busy. The menu taped to the wall offers great pasta staples like cacio e pepe, carbonara, and one of the best pastas alla gricia in town for around €7; mains go for €9–10 and are equally good. Mostly outside tables with a small inside room. No credit cards. Mon–Fri 12.30–3.30pm & 7.30–10.30pm, Sat 12.30–3.30pm.
Cantina Tirolese Via G. Vitelleschi 23 06.6813.5297. This rustic restaurant was reputedly the current pope’s favourite lunch spot while he was still a cardinal, and no wonder – the hearty and wholesome Austrian and German fare served here is excellent. The lunchtime buffet served between noon and 3pm is good value at €9.50. Tues–Fri noon–3pm & 7.30–11pm, Sat & Sun noon–3pm & 7.30pm–midnight.
Dal Toscano Via Germanico 58–60 06.3972.5717. Long-established restaurant that specializes in Tuscan cuisine, including thick charcoal-grilled steaks, at very affordable prices. Tues–Sun 12.30–3pm & 8–11pm.
Osteria dell’Angelo Via G. Bettolo 24 06.372.9470. Above-average and reasonably priced Roman cooking, from a highly popular restaurant run by an ex-rugby player. A la carte at lunch, set menus only at dinner (€25 for three courses). Mon–Sat 8–11.15pm, plus Tues & Fri 12.45–2.30pm.
Bars
There are plenty of bars in Rome, and an Irish pub practically on every corner. There’s also been a recent upsurge in wine bars (enoteche or vinerie); the old ones have gained new cachet, and newer ones are springing up too, often with accompanying gourmet menus, or just plates of salami and cheese. Bear in mind that there is sometimes considerable crossover between Rome’s bars, restaurants and clubs. For the most part, the places we have listed are drinking spots, but you can eat, sometimes quite substantially, at many of them, and several could be classed just as easily as clubs, with loud music and occasionally even an entrance charge. Campo de’ Fiori, Monti, Trastevere and Testaccio are the densest and most happening parts of town.
Centro Storico
Anima Via Santa Maria dell’ Anima 57. At present one of the city’s most popular bars, tricked out in postmodern Flintstones chic and offering an assortment of elegant snacks to go with your cocktails. Music tends towards chill-out, lounge and softer soul stuff. Tues–Sun 10pm–3am.
Bar della Pace Via della Pace 5. Just off Piazza Navona, this is a long-established bar with a cosy interior and outside tables that are often thronged at night. Daily 10am–2am.
Etabli Vicolo delle Vacche 9/A. Lounge-style bar and restaurant in the heart of the centro storico. Comfy sofas, free wi-fi, and a pleasant, not-too-cool vibe. Daily 12.30–3pm & 7pm–2am.
Jonathan’s Angels Via della Fossa 18. This quirky bar, just behind Piazza Navona, certainly wins the “most decorated” award. Every inch (even the toilet, which is worth a visit in its own right) is plastered, painted or tricked out in outlandish style by the artist-proprietor. Daily 1pm–2am.
Société Lutèce Piazza di Montevecchio 17. Tucked away on a tiny piazza five minutes from Piazza Navona, this is one of the centre’s coolest choices, with good cocktails and a free antipasto buffet early evening. Daily 6pm–2am.
Campo de’ Fiori and the Ghetto
Bartaruga Piazza Mattei 7. Wonderfully camp bar furnished with all sorts of eighteenth-century bits and pieces that, not surprisingly, make it a favourite with the thespian set. Sun–Thurs 6pm–midnight, Fri & Sat 6pm–2am.
L’Angolo Divino Via dei Balestri 12. A peaceful haven after the furore of Campo de’ Fiori, this wine bar has a large selection of wine, and simple wine-bar food – bread, cheese, cold cuts, soups and the like. Tues–Sat 10.30am–2pm & 5.30pm–2am, Sun & Mon 5.30pm–2am.
La Vineria Campo de’ Fiori 15. This long-established bar right on the Campo is patronized by devoted regulars, and also offers light meals. Mon–Sat 8.30am–2am.
Mad Jack’s Via Arenula 20. One of the nicest and most authentic of Rome’s army of Irish pubs. The Guinness is decent, and it’s not just frequented by expats and tourists.
The Tridente and Quirinale
L’Enoteca Antica Via della Croce 76/B. An old Spanish Steps-area wine bar, recently refurbished, with a selection of hot and cold dishes, including soups and attractive desserts. Intriguing trompe l’oeil decorations inside, majolica-topped tables outside. Daily 11am–11pm.
Rosati Piazza del Popolo 5. This bar hosted left-wingers, bohemians and writers in years gone by, and although that’s no longer really the case its cocktails and food still draw the crowds. A nice place from which to watch the action on Piazza del Popolo. Daily 8am–midnight.
The Esquline, Monti and Termini
Ai Tre Scalini Via Panisperna 251. Great, easy-to-miss little Monti bar, cosy and comfortable, with a good wine list, but beer on tap too, and decent food – cheese and salami plates plus porchetta, lasagne and other simple staples.
Al Vino al Vino Via dei Serpenti 19. Seriously good wine-bar situated on the Monti district’s most happening street. Snacks too – generally Sicilian specialities. Daily 11.30am–1.30pm & 5.30pm–12.30am.
La Barrique Via del Boschetto 41/B. This labyrinthine wine bar in the heart of Monti is a great spot for an aperitivo, and platters of meats and cheeses keep pre-dinner hunger pangs at bay. Mon–Fri 1–3pm & 6pm–2am, Sat 6pm–2am.
The Celian Hill and San Giovanni
Tree Folks Via Capo d’Africa 29. Lots of Belgian and German brews in this popular Celio bar. Food too – plates of cold cuts, burgers and chips, salads – and their other speciality is whisky, with a selection of single malts that must be one of the city’s best. Daily 6pm–2am.
The Aventine and Testaccio
Oasi della Birra Piazza Testaccio 41. Subterranean Testaccio bar with a beer selection that would rival anywhere in the world and plenty of wine to choose from as well, plus generous plates of cheese and salami. Mon–Sat 5pm–midnight, Sun 7pm–midnight.
Trastevere
Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà Via Benedetta 25. You’ll find an amazing choice of artisanal beers from all over the world in this tiny Trastevere bar. Most of them you won’t find anywhere else in the city, or even Italy, and this is a cosy place to work your way through them. Daily 3pm–2am.
Ombre Rosse Piazza Sant’Egidio 12. A people-watching spot that has become a Trastevere institution, especially for a morning cappuccino, but also for light meals and evening drinks. Mon–Sat 7.30am–2am, Sun 10am–2am.
Pe.Pa.To Via del Politeama 8. One block back from the river, this sleek, cavernous bar is always buzzing, and the crowd usually spills outside onto the street after enjoying the excellent nightly aperitivo buffet. Daily 7pm–2am.
San Calisto Piazza San Calisto 4. This bar attracts a huge crowd on late summer nights; the booze is cheap, and you can sit at outside tables for no extra cost. During the day it’s simply a great spot to sip a cappuccino in the sunshine. Mon–Sat 5.30pm–1.30am.
Villa Borghese and north
Annibale Piazza dei Carracci 4. Right around the corner from MAXXI, and not far from the Auditorium, this wine bar looks set to benefit from the resurgence of the area, and deservedly so. Its cool, white interior is a nice place to sip a glass of wine, and there’s an outdoor terrace in summer.
The Vatican and Prati
Fonclea Via Crescenzio 82/A. Busy and happening bar in the Vatican area that hosts regular live music – usually jazz, soul and funk. Daily 7pm–2am.
Four Green Fields Via C. Morin 42. This Irish pub stretches over two floors, with live music downstairs every evening. Draught Guinness and Kilkenny complement the scene, along with decent pub grub. Daily 6pm–2am.
Nuvolari Via degli Ombrellari 10. This welcoming Borgo bar serves a full menu next door but also has a free early-evening buffet during the week. A good choice of wines, and a pleasant local vibe – not at all what you expect in this part of town. Mon–Sat 6.30pm–2am.
Nightlife and entertainment
Roman nightlife is a lot cooler and more varied than it used to be. There are a few smart clubs, principally in the centre of town, but also quite a few smaller and more alternative clubs and live music venues, mainly confined to the neighbourhoods of Testaccio and Ostiense, and in up-and-coming Pigneto and Prenestino to the east of Termini – though bear in mind that some clubs close during August or move to summer premises in Ostia or Fregene. The city has historically been a bit of a backwater for the performing arts, but this has improved in recent years and in any case, what the arts here may lack they often make up for in the charm of the setting. Rome’s summer festival – Estate Romana (www.estateromana.comune.roma.it) – means that there’s a good range of classical music and opera running throughout the warm months, often in picturesque locations, and October’s film festival (www.romacinemafest.it) attracts its fair share of big names.
Clubs
Black Out Via Casilina 713 339.200.1029, www.blackoutrockclub.com. Long-running club that plays punk, heavy metal and Goth music, with occasional gigs by US and UK bands.
Classico Village Via Libetta 3 06.5728.8857. Industrial Ostiense location with a big dancefloor, a venue for live music, and a restaurant.
Gilda Via Mario de’ Fiori 97 06.678.4838, www.gildabar.it. A few blocks from the Spanish Steps, this slick club is the focus for the city’s minor celebs and wannabes.
Goa Via Libetta 13 06.574.8277. Ostiense club that was opened by famous local DJ Giancarlino and is still playing techno, house and jungle; Goa also has sofas to help you recover after high-energy dancing.
La Maison Vicolo dei Granari 4 06.683.3312. Ritzy club whose chandeliers and glossy decor attract Rome’s gilded youth. Sunday – gay night – is the one to go for.
Micca Club Van Pietro Micca 7/A 06.8744.0079, www.miccaclub.com. An atmopsheric location in an old vaulted cellar and regular DJs playing funk and soul. It also has a vintage clothes market on Sun at 6pm.
Piper Via Tagliamento 9 06.855.5398, www.piperclub.it. Established back in the 1970s, but still going strong, Piper has nightly events and a wide range of music.
Qube Via Portonaccio 212 06.435.5445, www.qubedisco.com. This Tiburtina club hosts a variety of different nights each week, including live music. Not the most original for music, but its Friday gay and drag night draws a big crowd.
Live music venues
Akab/Cave Via Monte Testaccio 69 www.akabcave.com. Two venues in one: Akab is at ground level and usually plays house music, while Cave is below-ground and features r’n’b. Concerts are generally once or twice a week. Tues & Thurs–Sat 10pm–4am.
Alexanderplatz Via Ostia 9 06.5833.5781, www.alexanderplatz.it. Rome’s top live jazz club/restaurant with reasonable membership (€10) and free entry, except when there’s star billing. Reservations recommended. Doors open 8pm.
Alpheus Via del Commercio 36 06.574.7826, www.alpheus.it. Housed in an ex-factory off Via Ostiense, a little way beyond Testaccio, this has space for three simultaneous events – usually a concert, DJ, exhibition or piece of theatre.
Big Mama Vicolo San Francesco a Ripa 18 06.581.2551, www.bigmama.it. Trastevere-based jazz/blues club of long standing, hosting nightly acts. Monthly membership costs €8, and then entry is free except for star attractions (when it’s important to book ahead). Doors open 9pm.
Casa del Jazz Viale di Porta Ardeatina 55 06.704.731, www.casajazz.it. This converted villa in leafy surroundings is the ultimate jazz-lovers’ complex, with a book and CD store and restaurant, recording studios and a 150-seat auditorium that hosts jazz names most nights of the week. Metro B Piramide, or bus #714 from Termini. Admission €10.
Circolo degli Artisti Via Casilina Vecchia 42 06.7030.5684, www.circoloartisti.it. A very large venue, located beyond Porta Maggiore, that was one of the first of the city’s co-called centri sociali. A good range of bands, with frequent themed nights, from hip-hop to ska. Fri is Omogenic – gay night. Bus #105 from Termini, or #810 from Piazza Venezia.
Forte Prenestino Via F. Delpino 100 06.2180.7855, www.forteprenestino.net. This early twentieth-century fortress, and giant squat since 1986, is home to one of Rome’s most active centri sociali, with regular live music, film screenings and other events held both inside and out in the castle courtyards. It also boasts a bookstore, various studios, and a very inexpensive restaurant (Mon–Fri). Tram #5 from Termini or bus #542 or #544 from Metro B Monti Tiburtini.
Rising Love Via delle Conce 14 333.308.2245, www.risinglove.it. This Ostiense club’s Thursday “I Love Rock” nights host indie bands and DJs. Other evenings see reggae, funk, hip-hop and jam sessions. Metro Piramide, or bus #30 or #60 from Piazza Venezia, #75 from Termini, or #95 from Metro A Barberini.
Gay bars, restaurants and clubs
Asinocotto Via dei Vascellari 48 06.589.8985, www.asinocotto.com. Gay Trastevere restaurant with a great, Proust-inspired menu of moderately priced pasta, meat and fish dishes. Worth a visit whatever your non-culinary preferences.
Coming Out Via San Giovanni in Laterano 8 06.700.9871. This small bar is a good place for a drink, and the street it’s on is one of the city’s most popular gay hangouts.
Garbo Vicolo di Santa Margherita 1/A 06.5832.0782. Friendly Trastevere bar, just behind the main piazza, with a relaxed atmosphere and a nice setting.
L’Alibi Via Monte Testaccio 44 06.574.3448, www.lalibi.it. Predominantly male venue that’s one of Rome’s oldest gay clubs. Downstairs there’s a multi-room cellar disco, upstairs an open-air bar, and there’s a big terrace to enjoy in the warm months.
L’Hangar Via in Selci 29 06.4881.3971. Just off Via Cavour, this is one of Rome’s oldest gay spots, and one of its busiest. Saturday night it’s almost impossible to get in the door.
Classical music and opera
Rome attracts far fewer prestigious classical artists than you might expect of a capital, but it is becoming more and more a magnet for contemporary works, a sea change that has been inspired by the completion of the new Auditorium. It also has some spectacular venues – check the listings and keep a look-out for posters advertising events in churches or other non-concert-hall locations, the best of which is the Baths of Caracalla, which hosts the summer season of the city’s Teatro dell’Opera.
Auditorium/Parco della Musica Via P. de Coubertin 15 199.109.783, www.auditorium.com. This landmark music complex is Rome’s most prestigious venue, home to the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, who are resident part of the year in its largest hall. Two smaller venues host chamber, choral, recital and experimental works. The complex also hosts major rock and jazz names when they come to town. Box office daily 11am–8pm. Guided tours €9.
Oratorio del Gonfalone Via del Gonfalone 32/A 06.687.5952. This lovely theatre, just off Campo de’ Fiori, stages performances of chamber music, with an emphasis on the Baroque.
Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Piazza Beniamino Gigli 1 06.4816.0255, www.operaroma.it. Nobody compares it to La Scala, but cheap tickets are a lot easier to come by at Rome’s opera and ballet venue – they start at around €25 for opera, less for ballet – and important artists do sometimes perform here. Don’t miss their summer season of concerts held in the Baths of Caracalla. Box office Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 9am–1.30pm.
Teatro Olimpico Piazza Gentile da Fabriano 17 06.326.5991, www.teatroolimpico.it. Classical standards, chamber music and ballet are performed here, by resident orchestra Accademia Filarmonica Romana, as well as occasional contemporary work. Tickets are cheap (€15–35) and relatively easy to come by.
Shopping in Rome
At first glance, you may wonder where to start when it comes to shopping in a big, chaotic city like Rome. In fact the city promises a more appealing shopping experience than you might think, abounding with colourful shopping streets. There are some vibrant markets too: Porta Portese is chaotic but fun, while the market near Piazza Vittorio Emanuele (between Via Lamarmora and Via Ricasoli; Mon–Sat mornings) is great for foodie souvenirs. Fashion straight from the catwalk is well represented on the streets close to the Spanish Steps, where you’ll find all the major A-list designers. More mainstream and chain fashion stores cluster on Via del Corso, Via Cola di Rienzo, near the Vatican, and Via Nazionale, while the streets of the Monti district are home to an increasing number of stylish independent boutiques. Via del Governo Vecchio is the best stretch of funky, stylish independent fashion boutiques and vintage stores. Or just follow your nose – in Rome you’re almost bound to stumble across something interesting.
Books, music and stationery
Fabriano Via del Babuino 172. This long-running chain sells bright and contemporary stationery, wallets and briefcases. Mon–Sat 10am–7.30pm.
Lion Bookshop Via dei Greci 33. Veteran English bookshop with a lounge area where you can enjoy a coffee or tea. Mon 3.30–7.30pm, Tues–Sun 10am–7.30pm.
Open Door Bookshop Via della Lungaretta 23. You never know what treasures you might turn up in this ancient secondhand bookstore, with plenty in English. Mon 4.30–8.30pm, Tues–Fri 10.30am–8.30pm, Sat 10.30am–midnight, Sun noon–6pm; afternoons and evenings only in summer.
Soul Food Via di San Giovanni in Laterano 192–194. This vinyl junkie’s paradise – a CD-free zone – has lots of stuff from the 1960s and 1970s, and genuinely enthusiastic staff too. Tues–Sat 10.30am–1.30pm & 3.30–8pm.
Clothes and accessories
Arsenale Via del Governo Vecchio 64. One of the largest boutiques along this funky stretch, with great dresses by the owner Patrizia Pieroni and lots of other stuff by independent designers. Mon 3.30–7.30pm, Tues–Sat 10am–7.30pm.
Aspesi Via del Babuino 144. Flagship store of the contemporary Italian designer, with cool designs for both men and women.
Ibiz Via dei Chiavari 39. Great leather bags, purses and rucksacks in exciting contemporary designs made on the premises. Mon–Sat 10am–7.30pm.
NuYorica Piazza Pollarola 36/37. Stylish shop specializing in shoes and bags by contemporary designers. Mon–Sat 10.30am–7.30pm.
Food and wine
Buccone Via di Ripetta 19. One of the city centre’s best wine stores, with wines and spirits from all Italian regions. Mon–Thurs 9am–8.30pm, Fri & Sat 9am–midnight, Sun 10am–5pm.
Castroni Via Cola di Rienzo 196. Huge, labyrinthine food store that’s a great place to stock up a large selection of Italian treats including chocolates, pastas, sauces, and olive oils – plus a café. Other branches at Via Ottaviano 55 and Via delle Quattro Fontane. Mon–Sat 8am–8pm.
Moriondo & Gariglio Via del Pie’ di Marmo 21–22. The city centre’s most sumptuous and refined handmade chocolate shop – great for exquisitely wrapped gifts. Mon–Sat 9.30am–1pm & 3.30–7.30pm.
Volpetti Via Marmorata 47. It’s worth seeking out this Testaccio deli, which is truly one of Rome’s very best. If you’re lucky, one of the staff will let you sample their truly incredible mozzarella di bufala. Mon–Sat 8am–2pm & 5–8pm.
Gifts
Fratelli Alinari Via Alibert 16/A. A fine selection of black-and-white photographs of Rome from over 100 years ago. Prices start at around €40. Mon–Sat 3.30–7.30pm.
Old Soccer Via di Ripetta 30. Old-fashioned Italian football shirts from around €70 – ironically enough, made in England. Daily 10am–8pm.
Roma Store Via della Lungaretta 63. Not a football merchandise store but a shop selling classic perfumes, scented soaps, lotions and candles. Only the very finest from Italy, France and England. Mon 4–8pm, Tues–Sat 9.30am–1.30pm & 4–8pm.
Film
There tends to be limited English-language cinema on offer in Rome (look for “v.o.” – versione originale – in the film listings), but if your Italian is up to it, you’ll naturally also find current Italian-language productions available all over town.
Alcazar Via Merry del Val 14 06.588.0099. Trastevere cinema featuring mainstream American and English films, with weird ones slipping in on Mondays.
Casa del Cinema Largo Marcello Mastroianni 1 06.423.601, www.casadelcinema.it. Right by the Porta Pinciana entrance to the Villa Borghese, this building epitomizes Rome’s cultural renaissance under former mayor Walter Veltroni, opened in 2004 as a venue for reruns and retrospectives and dedicated to Italy’s most famous international film actor, Marcello Mastroianni.
Metropolitan Via del Corso 7 06.320.0933. The city centre’s largest multiscreen cinema, with at least one of the four screens showing undubbed versions.
Nuovo Olimpia Via in Lucina 16 06.686.1068. Very central, just off Via del Corso, with two screens, and regularly featuring films in their original language.
Nuovo Sacher Largo Ascianghi 1 06.581.8116. Trastevere cinema set up by the Italian director Nanni Moretti, and always showing their current film – mainly foreign independent movies – in its original version on Monday and Tuesday.
Listings
Bike and scooter rental Barberini, Via della Purificazione 84 (06.488.5485), rents out bikes, mopeds and scooters. Bikes cost €10 per day, mopeds €30–40, scooters €50–70. Open daily 9am–7pm.
Books All of the following are excellent English-language bookshops: Anglo-American Bookshop (Via delle Vite 102; 06.679.5222); Almost Corner Bookshop (Via del Moro 45; 06.583.6942); Lion Bookshop (Via dei Greci 33; 06.3265.4007).
Car rental All the usual suspects have desks at Fiumicino, Ciampino, Termini and elsewhere in the city. Avis 06.4423.0134; Europcar 06.488.2854; Hertz 06.321.6886; Maggiore 06.488.3715.
Dentist 24hr dental care is available at the George Eastman hospital, Viale Regina Margherita 287.
Embassies Australia, Via Bosio 5 06.852.721; Britain, Via XX Settembre 80/A 06.4220.0001; Canada, Via Zara 30 06.445.981; Ireland, Piazza Campitelli 3 06.697.9121; New Zealand, Via Zara 28 06.441.7171; South Africa, Via Tanaro 06.852.541; US, Via Veneto 119 06.46.741.
Emergencies Police 113; Carabinieri112; Fire 115; Ambulance 118. Both the police and the carabinieri have offices in Termini. Otherwise the most central police office is off Via del Corso in Piazza del Collegio Romano 3 (06.46.86), and there’s a carabinieri office in Piazza Venezia.
Exchange American Express, Piazza di Spagna 38 (Mon–Fri 9.30am–5.30pm, Sat 9am–12.30pm); Thomas Cook, Piazza Barberini 21/A (Mon–Sat 9am–8pm, Sun 9.30am–5pm) and Via della Conciliazione 23 (Mon–Sat 8.30am–7.30pm, Sun 9.30am–5pm). Post offices will exchange American Express travellers’ cheques and cash commission-free. An Ufficio Cambio will almost always offer the worst rates.
Football Rome’s two big teams, Roma and Lazio, play on alternate Sundays between Sept and May at the Olympic Stadium, northwest of the centre. Take tram #2 from Piazzale Flaminio to Piazza Mancini and then walk across the river to the stadium. Lazio fans traditionally occupy the Curva Nord, the northern end, and Roma fans the Curva Sud. It’s usually easiest to pick up seats in the corner stands, or distinti, for €25–35; seats in the side stands, or tribuna, cost €50–100. www.romalazio.co.uk has information in English on both clubs and sells tickets.
Hospitals In an emergency call 118. The most central hospitals with emergency facilities are: Santo Spirito, Lungotevere in Sassia 1 (06.68.351), near the Vatican, and Fatebenefratelli, Isola Tiberina (06.683.7299).
Internet access Bibli, Via dei Fienaroli 28 (Tues–Sun 11am–midnight, Mon 5.30pm–midnight); Yex, Piazza Sant’Andrea delle Valle 1 (daily 10am–11pm).
Lost property For property lost on a train call 06.4730.6682 (daily 7am–11pm); on a bus 06.581.6040 (Mon & Fri 8.30am–1pm, Tues–Thurs 2.30–6pm); on the metro 06.487.4309.
Pharmacies The following pharmacies are open late: Piram, Via Nazionale 228 (06.488.0754); Farmacia della Stazione, Piazza dei Cinquecento 51 (06.488.0019).
Post offices The main post office is on Piazza San Silvestro (Mon–Fri 8.30am–6.30pm, Sat 8.30am–1pm).
Out from the city: Ostia Antica and Tivoli
You may find there’s quite enough in Rome to keep you occupied during your stay, but it can be a hot, oppressive city and if you’re around long enough you shouldn’t feel bad about getting out to see something of the countryside; and in fact two of the main attractions visitable on a day-trip from Rome are the equal of anything you can see in the city. Tivoli, about an hour by bus east of Rome, is a small town famous for the travertine quarries nearby, the landscaped gardens and parks of its Renaissance villas, and a fine ancient Roman villa just outside. Ostia, in the opposite direction near the sea, and similarly easy to reach on public transport, was home to the port of Rome in classical times, and the well-preserved site is worth seeing.
Ostia Antica
There are two Ostias: one a rather over-visited seaside resort, Lido di Ostia; the other, one of the finest ancient Roman sites – the excavations of OSTIA ANTICA – which are on a par with anything you’ll see in Rome itself (or indeed elsewhere in Italy) and easily merit the half-day journey out. It’s reachable by regular train from Roma-Lido station, next door to the Piramide metro station (line B).
The site of Ostia Antica marked the coastline in classical times, and the town which grew up here was the port of ancient Rome, a thriving place whose commercial activities were vital to the city further upstream. The excavations are relatively free of tourists (April–Oct Tues–Sun 8.30am–6pm; March 8.30am–5pm; Nov–Feb 8.30am–4pm; €6.50), and it’s much easier to reconstruct a Roman town from these than from any amount of pottering around the Roman Forum. It’s also very spread out, so be prepared for a fair amount of walking.
The site
The main street, the Decumanus Maximus, leads west from the entrance, past the Baths of Neptune on the right (where there’s an interesting mosaic) to the town’s commercial centre, otherwise known as the Piazzale delle Corporazioni, for the remains of shops and trading offices that still fringe the central square. These represented commercial enterprises from all over the ancient world, and the mosaics just in front denote their trade – grain merchants, ship-fitters, rope makers and the like. Flanking one side of the square, the theatre has been much restored but is nonetheless impressive, enlarged by Septimius Severus in the second century AD to hold up to four thousand people. On the left of the square, the House of Apulius preserves mosaic floors and, beyond, a dark-aisled mithraeum has more mosaics illustrating the cult’s practices. Behind here – past the substantial remains of the horrea or warehouses that once stood all over the city – the Casa di Diana is probably the best-preserved private house in Ostia, with a dark, mysterious set of rooms around a central courtyard, again with a mithraeum at the back. You can climb up to its roof for a fine view of the rest of the site, afterwards crossing the road to the Thermopolium – an ancient Roman café, complete with seats outside, a high counter, display shelves and even wall paintings of parts of the menu. North of the Casa di Diana, the Museo Ostiense holds a variety of articles from the site, including a statue of Mithras killing a bull, wall paintings depicting domestic life in Ostia, and some fine sarcophagi and statuary from the imperial period. Left from here, the Forum centres on the Capitol building, reached by a wide flight of steps, and is fringed by the remains of baths and a basilica. Further on down the main street, more horrea, superbly preserved and complete with pediment and names inscribed on the marble, merit a detour off to the right; although you can’t enter, you can peer into the courtyard. Beyond, the House of Cupid and Psyche has a courtyard you can walk into, its rooms clearly discernible on one side, a colourful marbled floor on the other.
Tivoli
Perched high on a hill just 40km from Rome, TIVOLI has always been something of a retreat from the city. In classical days it was a retirement town for wealthy Romans; later, during Renaissance times, it again became the playground of the moneyed classes, attracting some of the city’s most well-to-do families, who built their country villas out here. Nowadays the leisured classes have mostly gone, but Tivoli does very nicely on the fruits of its still-thriving travertine business, exporting the precious stone worldwide (the quarries line the main road into town from Rome), and supports a small centre that preserves a number of relics from its ritzier days. To do justice to the gardens and villas – especially if Villa Adriana is on your list, as indeed it should be – you’ll need time, so it’s worth setting out early.
Villa d’Este
Tivoli’s major sight is the Villa d’Este, across the main square of Largo Garibaldi (daily: May–Aug 8.30am–6.45pm; Sept 8.30am–6.15pm; Oct 8.30am–5.30pm; Jan, Nov & Dec 8.30am–4pm; Feb 8.30am–4pm; March 8.30am–5.15pm; April 8.30am–6.30pm; €6.50; www.villadestetivoli.info), the country villa of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, and now often thronged with visitors even outside peak season. The villa has been restored to its original state, with beautiful Mannerist frescoes in its seven ground-floor rooms showing scenes from the history of the d’Este family in Tivoli. But most people come here to see the garden, which peels away down the hill in a succession of terraces dotted with fountains. Among the highlights are the Fontana dell’Ovato on the right, topped with statues on a curved terrace around artificial mountains, behind which is a rather dank arcade. Beyond are the dark, gushing Grottoes of the Sibyls and behind them the Fontana dell’Organo, a giant and very elaborate water-organ which plays every couple of hours; right in front, the similarly large Fontana del Nettuno ejects a massive torrent down into a set of central fish ponds. Finish up on the far side of the garden, where the Rometta or “Little Rome” has reproductions of the city’s major buildings and a boat holding an obelisk.
Tivoli practicalities
Buses leave Rome for Tivoli every 10min from outside Ponte Mammolo metro station (line B; journey time 30–45min) and drop off on Tivoli’s main square, Piazza Garibaldi, two minutes’ walk from the Villa d’Este. To get to the Villa Gregoriana from here, make a right off Piazza Garibaldi to Piazza Santa Croce and follow Via del Trivio through the pedestrianized old town to Piazza del Plebiscito, where Via Palatina continues down to the bridge over the gorge. Cross over, and the back entrance is just around the corner on the left – a ten-minute walk in all. To get to the Villa Adriana, ask the Rome–Tivoli bus driver to drop you off or take the CAT #4 bus from Tivoli’s Piazza Garibaldi; it’s a ten-minute walk from the main road.
The tourist office is on Largo Garibaldi (Mon & Sat 9am–3pm, Tues–Fri 9am–6.30pm; 0774.334.522). Overlooking the Villa Gregoriana, right by the entrance, Sibilla, Via Sibilla 50 (0774.335.281), is one of the best restaurants in Tivoli, while I Portici, in the centre of town at Piazza Garibaldi 5, is a good place for baccalà or pizza, and has tables outside.
Villa Gregoriana
Tivoli’s other main attraction, the Villa Gregoriana (April to mid-Oct Tues–Sun 10am–6.30pm; March & mid-Oct to end Nov Tues–Sat 10am–2.30pm, Sun 10am–4pm; €5), isn’t actually a villa at all, but an impressively wild set of landscaped gardens, created when Pope Gregory XVI diverted the flow of the river here to ease the periodic flooding of the town in 1831. At least as interesting and beautiful as the d’Este estate, it remains less well known and less visited, and has none of the latter’s conceits – its vegetation is lush and overgrown, descending into a gorge over 60m deep.
There are two main waterfalls – the larger Grande Cascata on the far side, and a small Bernini-designed one at the neck of the gorge. The best thing to do is walk the main path in reverse, starting at the back entrance, over the river, and winding down to the bottom of the canyon. The ruins of a Republican-era villa cling to the far side of the gorge, and you can peek into them and then catch your breath down by the so-called Grotto of the Mermaid, before scaling the other side to the Grotto of Neptune, reached by a tunnelled-out passage through the rock, where you can sit right by the roaring falls, the dark, torn shapes of the rock glowering overhead. The path leads up from here to an exit and the substantial remains of an ancient Temple of Vesta, which marks the main entrance to the villa. You can take a breather at the small café here, and the view is probably Tivoli’s best – down into the chasm and across to the high green hills that ring the town.
Villa Adriana
Just outside town, at the bottom of the hill, fifteen minutes’ walk off the main Rome, the Villa Adriana (daily 9am–1hr before sunset; €6.50) casts the invention of the Tivoli popes and cardinals very much into the shade. This was probably the largest and most sumptuous villa in the Roman Empire, the retirement home of the Emperor Hadrian for a short while between 135 AD and his death three years later, and it occupies an enormous site. There’s no point in doing it at a gallop and, taken with the rest of Tivoli, it makes for a long day’s sightseeing.
The site is one of the most soothing spots around Rome, its stones almost the epitome of romantic, civilized ruins. The imperial palace buildings proper are in fact one of the least well preserved parts of the complex, but much else is clearly recognizable. Hadrian was a great traveller and a keen architect, and parts of the villa were inspired by buildings he had seen throughout the empire. The massive Pecile, for instance, through which you enter, is a reproduction of a building in Athens; and the Canopus, on the opposite side of the site, is a liberal copy of the sanctuary of Serapis near Alexandria, its long, elegant channel of water fringed by sporadic columns and statues leading up to a Temple of Serapis at the far end. Nearby, a museum displays the latest finds from the ongoing excavations, though most of the extensive original discoveries have found their way back to Rome. Walking back towards the entrance, make your way across the upper storey of the so-called Pretorio, a former warehouse, and down to the remains of two bath complexes. Beyond is a fishpond with a cryptoporticus (underground passageway) winding around underneath, and behind that the relics of the emperor’s imperial apartments. The Teatro Maríttimo, adjacent, with its island in the middle of a circular pond, is the place to which it’s believed Hadrian would retire at siesta time to be sure of being alone.