Beyond the Centre
To the north and south of central Rome are interesting sights well worth exploring. Follow the atmospheric Via Appia Antica south from the Baths of Caracalla to the outskirts of the modern city and discover the evocative ruins of palaces, a circus and curious funeral monuments, half-hidden under creepers or in the shade of umbrella pines. To the north, MAXXI and the Auditorium Parco della Musica – both ground-breaking buildings – give a tantalizing taste of the Rome of the future.
Visitors in MAXXI, Rome’s impressive contemporary art gallery
Highlights
MAXXI
Take a walk through the astounding MAXXI – Rome’s museum of 21st-century art – with an interactive audioguide on a Nintendo.
Catacombs of Priscilla
Explore the network of spooky tunnels and see the oldest known image of the Madonna and Child at the Catacombs of Priscilla.
Via Appia Antica
Escape the city on foot – or hire a bike – and head out along the umbrella-pine-shaded Via Appia Antica.
Baths of Caracalla
Visit the extensive ruins of the beautiful Baths of Caracalla – ancient Rome’s biggest baths complex.
EUR
Wonder at the eerie streets of EUR, visit a giant model of 4th-century Rome in its Museo della Civiltà Romana, and stargaze in its Planetarium (see EUR).
Cinecittà si Mostra
Step behind the scenes at Italy’s most famous film studios, where children can walk around a fake New York and ancient Rome (see Cinecittà si Mostra).
The Best of Beyond the Centre
The Tomb of Cecilia Metella, Via Appia Antica
Beyond Rome’s centre there lies a fascinating miscellany of sights from parks, ruins and catacombs to experimental Fascist-era buildings and ground-breaking 21st-century architecture. Explore the nature reserve of Via Appia Antica, step behind the scenes at Cinecittà si Mostra and take a trip into the future at MAXXI and the Auditorium Parco della Musica, all of which are interesting as well as educational for children of all ages.
Ancient discoveries
Explore the brilliant Baths of Caracalla, one of the most famous sights of ancient Rome – best approached by walking from the Colosseum and across the Celian Hill to avoid traffic. Take advantage of the entrance ticket to the baths, which lasts seven days and includes entry to the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. This, and the Catacombs of San Callisto, the most extensive system of catacombs in Italy, are only a few of the barely excavated, atmospheric ruins along the Via Appia Antica. The Parco della Caffarella’s information office has maps plotting the monuments. In the north of Rome, the Catacombs of Priscilla below Villa Ada have a fresco that is thought to be the oldest representation of the Madonna and Child.
Entertainment
MAXXI and the Auditorium Parco della Musica have a rich programme of events for families throughout the year. Drop by the Auditorium Parco della Musica on a Sunday morning in winter for a family concert; let kids loose on the adjacent ice-skating rink after the show. Rent MAXXI’s interactive Nintendo guide to the building and current exhibitions, likely to appeal to even the most uninterested kids. Seek out strange angles with a camera or sketchbook on the contemporary Ponte della Musica, the foot-bridge to the Mussolini-era sports complex, Foro Italico. In summer, Villa Ada and the Baths of Caracalla are among the city’s major music and dance venues.
The great outdoors
A day out along the Via Appia Antica on a Sunday, when cars are banned, can give the sense of getting far away from the city. The ancient road is actually part of the Parco della Caffarella nature reserve, which, apart from archaeological monuments offers more nature-oriented activities. Alternatively, Villa Ada, a vast sweep of wild wooded hills fringed with landscaped gardens, plus a playground and café, is an ideal destination when kids have had enough of sightseeing.
Visions of the future
While most people visit Rome for its ancient sites, medieval core and Baroque piazzas, fountains and churches, it can be refreshing to see how the city is still developing. Visiting Mussolini’s model suburb of EUR is a little like walking around the set of an old-fashioned science fiction movie with sets designed by Surrealist artist Giorgio De Chirico – its rational, authoritarian buildings reduce human beings to Lilliputian proportions. Mussolini’s sports arena, the Stadio dei Marmi, on the other side of the city is a far more kitsch affair, surrounded by statues of muscled young athletes representing an ideal of Fascist youth. A far more egalitarian, even spiritual, vision of society permeates Rome’s newest buildings – MAXXI, by avant-garde architect Zaha Hadid, and the Auditorium Parco della Musica by Renzo Piano.
Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI, a museum of contemporary art and architecture
MAXXI and around
View from the curved walkways, MAXXI
Until the last decade, the area in northern Rome known as Flaminio – littered with vainglorious monuments erected by Mussolini in the late 1920s and 30s – was something of an embarrassment to many Romans. However, in the last 10 years, since the opening of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in 2002, it has become popular with both locals and visitors. The three main sights are within walking distance of each other, while to the east, the residential district around Villa Ada and the Via Salaria – well off the tourist trail – is an ideal destination for days when children need to take it easy. Tram 2 makes access to the area straightforward.
2. Auditorium Parco della Musica
Skating in the Stadio dei Marmi, Foro Italico
1. MAXXI
Virtual futuristic building made concrete
Children cycling outside MAXXI
Built in a complex of disused barracks in the north of Rome, MAXXI was designed by the Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. It presents a permanent collection of 20th- and 21st-century architectural drawings and models, specially commissioned photography, and contemporary art in a series of concurrent thematic exhibitions that change frequently. To make visits more stimulating for children, MAXXI has developed an interactive guide to the building and its exhibitions on a Nintendo DSi XL portable console.
Key Features
Glass ceiling
The ceiling, together with an ingenious system of moveable grilles, glass panels and concrete fins, fills the building with natural light while filtering out the fierce heat and glare of the midday sun.
The Overhang
The most dramatic feature of MAXXI is a gravity-defying dramatic overhang, like a bridge that has never been completed. Windows reflect the original barracks and adjacent buildings, as if creating a virtual and symbolic link between the past and the present.
Lights
Lighting in MAXXI is provided by a series of short, straight hollow red tubes of carbon fibre, suspended at abrupt angles in the atrium.
Atrium
The polished cement floor in the atrium reflects the colours of the surrounding buildings. Notice how the walls slope back on themselves, and how the floors curve up to meet them, without a joint.
Video room
Short art films and videos are screened for free in this small cinema on the ground floor.
Original barracks
Hadid decided to retain two of the original barracks buildings in the complex – one of them houses the museum’s restaurant, the other the Carlo Scarpa photography exhibition space.
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Reception desk Middle Stairways and walkways Right The Overhang, MAXXI
Kids’ Corner
Can you find…
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A stairway of light?
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A window that acts as a virtual bridge?
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A desk that looks like a marrow bone?
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A Nintendo DSi?
No barriers
When Hadid created a new factory for BMW in Germany, she wanted to dissolve the barriers between the workers on the assembly line and those in the offices, so she designed a conveyor belt that ran right past the desks of the office workers.
Rust-free walls
The walls and balustrades of the gallery’s stairs and passageways were painted with thick black primer conventionally used as an undercoat for new cars. At least they shouldn’t rust!
Cracking great architecture
A new and specially patented kind of concrete had to be developed for MAXXI that was especially strong and flexible, with a smooth, satiny texture – nevertheless cracks developed. Architects discovered that the solution was to pour the concrete at night in summer, so that it had time to set before it dried out in the sun.
2. Auditorium Parco della Musica
Music and more
Outdoor concert amphitheatre, Auditorium Parco della Musica
Designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2002, the Auditorium Parco della Musica – a subtle building complex so integrated with its surroundings that it is almost invisible from a distance – has become a favourite with Romans. Piano studied acoustics with contemporary composers such as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio and Luigi Nono while designing the complex. Stepping inside one of the auditoriums can feel like a voyage into the interior of a musical instrument thanks to its complex geometries and use of fine wood.
Piano’s vision was not merely to create a concert venue, but a multipurpose space, with an outdoor amphitheatre, shops and restaurants. Families flock here for the Sunday morning children’s concerts, ice-skating and free exhibitions, or to let children ride scooters or rollerblade in the amphitheatre. Take a guided tour of the fabulous concert spaces, or a casual walk around the interior, which is punctuated by neon signs beaming a selection of aphorisms in several languages that will get older children thinking.
3. Foro Italico
Kitsch Olympic bid
Statues in the Stadio dei Marmi, Foro Italico
Mussolini built the Foro Italico sports complex in the hope of following in the footsteps of Hitler and snaring the Olympic Games. Its original name, Foro Mussolini, was changed after he died, but a huge obelisk inscribed with the words “Mussolini Dux” has survived. The stadium, Stadio dei Marmi, is surrounded by 60 colossal travertine statues of athletes, each donated by one of the 60 Italian provinces and sculpted by unknown young sculptors. The running track in the centre is open for public use – people even walk their dogs here!
Kids’ Corner
Olympic stadium outgrown
By the time Rome finally got to host the Olympic games in 1960, the Stadio dei Marmi was too small and a bigger stadium, the Stadio Olimpico, was built.
Colossus of Mussolini
Mussolini’s original plan was to erect a 75-m (250-ft) high statue of himself dressed as Hercules within the Foro Italico complex. Perhaps he had been inspired by the 30-m (98-ft) high Colossus of Emperor Nero outside the Colosseum. In the end he settled for a 36-m (120-ft) high obelisk with his name on it.
4. Catacombs of Priscilla
Queen of catacombs
Early Christian fresco, Catacombs of Priscilla
The 1st-century AD Catacombs of Priscilla extend for 15 km (9 miles) in tunnels on three different levels below the country estate of an aristocratic Roman woman, Priscilla. Rarely visited, the catacombs are run by Benedictine Sisters and hold the tombs of around 40,000 Christians.
Take a guided tour to see several frescoed tombs belonging to wealthy families, contrasting with the simple burial places of the poor, which are simply sealed with a slab of stone or terracotta. The guide will point out lucernari – light shafts, which also allowed workers to climb in and take excavated soil and stone out – and little niches in which perfumed oil was burned to mask the smell of decaying corpses. These catacombs contain the oldest known image of the Madonna and Child, a fresco thought to date back to the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. Although the tombs were heavily plundered after their rediscovery in the 16th century, they are known as the “queen of catacombs” for the number of early Christian martyrs that were buried here.
Kids’ Corner
In the Catacombs of Priscilla can you find…
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A peacock?
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A quail?
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Jonah emerging from the mouth of a whale?
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A phoenix engulfed with flames?
Via Appia Antica and around
Passengers onboard a City Sightseeing tourist bus
Although it is not far from the Baths of Caracalla to the start of the Via Appia Antica at Domine Quo Vadis, the absence of pavements along traffic-heavy roads makes for an unpleasant walk, apart from on Sundays when traffic is banned. On other days it is best to catch bus 118 as far as Domine Quo Vadis and the Parco della Caffarella office and then walk through the grounds of the San Callisto catacombs until the road gets more peaceful near the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. Cinecittà and EUR are both effortlessly reachable by metro from the centre. Since most of the sights in this area are not close to any good food shops, it is better to pick up picnic supplies before leaving the centre.
Porta San Sebastiano, at the start of Via Appia Antica
1. Via Appia Antica
An ancient Roman motorway
Detail on a sarcophagus
Begun in 312 BC, the 560-km (300-mile) long Via Appia connected the Circus Maximus to the southern port of Brindisi on the Adriatic coast. Rome’s first major road, its main purpose was to transport the soliders and military supplies needed to conquer southern Italy, but it also found another use: burials were forbidden within the city walls and it was soon lined with tombs, funeral monuments and catacombs. The best day to walk or cycle along the Via Appia Antica is Sunday, when cars are banned.
Key Sights
1. Tomb of Geta This tomb was probably made for Emperor Septimius Severus’s son Geta, who was killed by his brother Caracalla in AD 212. The tower above it was built in the 16th century.
2. Domine Quo Vadis Inside this little church is a slab of marble with what are said to be the footprints made by St Peter when he was fleeing Rome to avoid crucifixion.
3. Catacombs of San Callisto Over half a million people were buried in these catacombs. The most famous tomb is that of Santa Cecilia, marked with a replica of the sculpture made by Stefano Maderno after the saint’s intact body was found here in 1599 (see East of Viale di Trastevere).
4. The Palace and Circus of Emperor Maxentius The red-brick ruins of a palace and circus are visible from the road. The circus had room for 10,000 spectators.
5. Catacombs of Domitilla St Peter’s fictional daughter, Petronilla, was buried in this catacomb. Next to it is a small burial chamber with a fresco showing Petronilla and a rich Roman woman, Veneranda, entering paradise together.
6. Catacombs of San Sebastiano At the entrance to these catacombs is a triclinium, where mourners were served refreshments after funerals. Its walls are covered with graffiti praising SS Peter and Paul.
7. Tomb of Romulus Located in the Circus of Maxentius, this was probably where Valerius Romulus, Maxentius’s son, was buried.
8. Tomb of Cecilia Metella Carved with bulls’ heads and fruit, this tomb was converted into a fortress by the Caetani family, who used it to demand a toll from travellers.
9. Capo di Bove Beyond Cecilia Metella, the road is quiet, shaded by pines and cypresses and lined by monuments, and retains much of its original paving.
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Tomb of Romulus Middle Catacombs of San Sebastiano Right Tomb of Cecilia Metella
Kids’ Corner
Treasure hunt
Pick up a map from the Parco della Caffarella office and, starting at the Tomb of Cecilia, see if you can find…
- The Torre Capo di Bove
- A Roman hero wearing a cape
- The ruined temple of Jupiter
- A tomb with five portraits
Appia Express
When the Via Appia was completed in the 1st century AD, it was possible to get from Rome to Brindisi in 13 or 14 days. Today, it takes six and a half hours to drive through.
Kata kymbas
The word catacombs comes from the Greek kata kymbas, which means “near the cave”.
Domine Quo Vadis?
According to Christian legend, St Peter fled Rome, hoping to escape death by crucifixtion. However, he stopped when he encountered Jesus at this spot on the Via Appia. “Domine quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going?), he asked. “Back to Rome to be crucified for a second time,” replied Jesus. St Peter, suitably shamed, turned back to Rome to die.
2. Baths of Caracalla
Ancient Roman leisure centre
The ruins of the frigidarium in the Baths of Caracalla
Surrounded by grass and umbrella pines, and not very crowded, the Baths of Caracalla is one of the most enjoyable ancient sites in the city. Begun by Emperor Septimius Severus in AD 206 and completed by his son Caracalla, it had room for 1,600 people and gardens, snack bars, a library and lecture rooms as well as the usual baths and gyms.
The marked route through the baths has lively information boards in English and Italian and takes visitors first to the apodyterium (dressing room), which has remains of mosaic pavements, and then to the huge frigidarium (cold pool). The two granite bathtubs on Piazza Farnese were once here, with water cascading out of them into what was an open-air Olympic-sized swimming pool or natatio. Beyond this is evidence that part of the baths was originally on two levels – there is a stairway leading to nowhere, and fragments of the upper storey’s mosaic pavements decorated with tritons, dolphins, cupids and marine monsters can be seen in the grass.
Kids’ Corner
In the Baths of Caracalla, can you find…
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The fragment of a mosaic of an athlete?
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A spotted mosaic floor of red, green, yellow and white marble
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Evidence that there was an upper storey?
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A mosaic of a horse; what kind of a horse is it (clue: this was a bath house)?
Bathtime fun
In ancient Rome, going for a daily bath was a major social event and one of the main ways of meeting people. When the first public baths opened in the 2nd century BC, there were separate baths complexes for men and women, but by the 1st century AD there was nothing to stop everyone from bathing together – except general disapproval. However, as the women-only baths had no gyms, women who wanted to work out as well as bathe had no choice.
3. EUR
Progress of Civilization
In 1937, Mussolini decided to mount an Esposizione Universale di Roma (EUR), devoted to the “Progress of Civilization” to demonstrate the achievements of Italian Fascism. A huge area to the south of Rome was cleared, and archictect Marcello Piacentini was given the job of creating a monument to Modernism and megalomania by 1942. However, work stopped in 1941, after Italy entered World War II. After the war, EUR was turned into a new residential and business zone. Half-finished buildings were completed, new ones were built and amusement parks were opened.
The Museo della Civiltà Romana displays plaster casts of statues and monuments and models of ancient Roman war machines. The museum houses Rome’s Planetarium, with scale models of the universe, cross-sections of planets, video footage of various astronomic phenomena and the chance to walk inside the nucleus of a replica star. Since the museum is closed for renovation, events scheduled to be held at the Planetarium will take place at Technotown in Villa Torlonia.
4. Cinecittà si Mostra
Show-off film studios
Movie costumes on display at Cinecittà si Mostra
Rome’s newest attraction, Cinecittà si Mostra, or Cinecittà Shows Off, not only offers the chance to step behind the scenes of Italy’s most famous film studio, but also the chance to see films being shot at the studio.
The main lawn is dotted with impressive props, including two giant claw-footed mock-bronze braziers used in the film Gladiator (2000), while a nearby pavilion has replicas of several famous statues ranging from the ancient Roman Capitoline Wolf to Pauline Borghese.
The section entitled “How a Film Is Made“ has more props as well as costumes, including Elizabeth Taylor’s from the film Cleopatra (1963). A short, amusing video shows how a film is made – an entertaining sequence shows how adding music, sound and special effects to a bland scene in a costume drama can turn it into something very scary. Also worth seeing is a film of scores of young actors taking screen tests.
Tours of the film sets take visitors through “Broadway”, created for the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York (2002), and then to an ancient Rome built with polystyrene, resin and printed cement for the British-American TV series Rome. A longer tour takes in a mock Florence and Assisi, along with a visit to a working film studio. Families should aim to visit during weekends, when there is a packed programme of workshops for kids in the Cinebimbicittà pavilion.
Kids’ Corner
Big brother
Grande Fratello, Italy’s version of Big Brother, was filmed at Cinecittà.
Doctor who?
In 2008, the ancient Rome set at Cinecittà was used for an episode of Doctor Who that was set in ancient Pompeii.