Lazio · Italy
Three thousand years of city built on top of itself, with the ancient layer still standing in the middle of the modern one.
Most historic cities preserve their past behind glass. Rome never bothered. The Pantheon has been in continuous use since AD 126 and you walk in off the street for the price of a coffee; the church of San Luigi dei Francesi has three Caravaggios in a side chapel and charges nothing to see them; a stretch of the Servian Wall from the fourth century BC stands in the concourse of the main railway station because there was nowhere else to put it. The city is not a museum with a town attached — it is a working capital of nearly three million people that happens to have been continuously inhabited for close to three thousand years.
That produces the particular Roman experience of layers. The Colosseum, opened in AD 80, sits at one end of a Forum that was the political centre of an empire covering three continents. A few hundred metres away, the Capitoline Museums have been open to the public since 1734, which makes them the oldest public museums in the world. Across the river, the Vatican holds Michelangelo's ceiling and the largest church in Christendom. And underneath all of it are catacombs, aqueducts, an entire earlier street level, and the reason Rome's metro has only three lines: you cannot dig anywhere here without hitting something that stops the works.
The other Rome is the one people actually remember — the neighbourhood one. Trastevere's lanes across the river, Testaccio's market and its ferociously traditional trattorias, the Aventine's orange garden, and the daily rhythm of espresso standing at a bar, a long lunch, and the passeggiata before dinner. Rome is best done at about half the pace visitors plan for, with a third of the sights and twice the walking.
Why visit
Rome's case is simple: no other city gives you this much of the ancient world, the Renaissance and the Baroque within walking distance of each other, still in use.
Not foundations — buildings. The Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Baths of Caracalla, an aqueduct running through a public park. You walk through Roman streets rather than looking at them across a rope.
Caravaggio in San Luigi dei Francesi and Santa Maria del Popolo, Michelangelo's Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli, Bernini everywhere. These are parish churches, open, unattended and costing nothing.
The colonnade at St Peter's, the fountain in Piazza Navona, the Ecstasy of St Teresa, half the Borghese Gallery. One artist shaped the public face of Baroque Rome more than any planner has shaped a city since.
Four pastas, the artichoke in two forms, offal cooked better than anywhere in Europe, and pizza al taglio sold by weight. It is cheap, specific and defended with real seriousness in Testaccio.
The historic centre is about three kilometres across. From the Colosseum to the Vatican on foot takes fifty minutes and passes the Forum, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and the Tiber.
Main attractions
There is more here than any trip can absorb. These eight are the ones worth building days around; everything else you will find by walking.
The Flavian Amphitheatre, opened in AD 80 and holding perhaps fifty thousand people, with the underground hypogeum where animals and machinery were held now exposed beneath the missing arena floor.
Tip Timed entry, booked ahead. The separate arena-floor and underground tickets are worth the extra and sell out first.
The civic centre of the Republic and Empire — the Senate house, the temple where Caesar was cremated, triumphal arches, the Vestal house — with the imperial palaces spread over the hill above it.
Tip On the same ticket as the Colosseum. Enter from the Palatine gate on Via di San Gregorio, where the queue is much shorter.
Rebuilt under Hadrian around AD 126, converted to a church in 609 and never abandoned, which is why it survives intact. The coffered concrete dome is still the largest unreinforced one ever built, with a nine-metre hole open to the sky.
Tip It now charges a small entry fee. Go in rain if you get the chance — water falls through the oculus and drains through holes in the floor.
Seven kilometres of galleries ending at Michelangelo's ceiling of 1508–12 and his Last Judgment of the 1530s, by way of the Raphael Rooms, the map gallery and one of the great classical sculpture collections.
Tip Book the first slot of the day. The route is one-way and enormous — do not attempt it and St Peter's in the same morning.
The largest church in Christendom, on the traditional site of Peter's grave, with Michelangelo's dome, his Pietà behind glass just inside the door, and Bernini's bronze baldachin over the altar.
Tip Free, but security queues are long by mid-morning. The dome climb is a separate ticket and 551 steps — the lift saves only the first third.
A cardinal's private collection in his own villa: Bernini's Apollo and Daphne and Rape of Proserpina, six Caravaggios, Titian and Raphael, in rooms small enough to see them properly.
Tip Strictly timed two-hour slots, booked well in advance and never available on the door. The best two hours of art in Rome.
Open to the public since 1734 and therefore the oldest public museums in the world, on Michelangelo's piazza — the bronze she-wolf, the Dying Gaul, the colossal fragments of Constantine and the original equestrian Marcus Aurelius.
Tip The gallery passage under the piazza comes out on a terrace with the best free view over the Forum.
Rome's port city, abandoned rather than destroyed, with streets, warehouses, apartment blocks, a theatre and a public latrine still in place. Half an hour from the centre by train and a fraction of the crowds.
Tip The best half-day out of Rome by public transport. Take the Roma–Lido train from Porta San Paolo on a normal metro ticket.
Things to do
Rome punishes over-scheduling. Pair one major sight with one neighbourhood each day and leave the evenings unplanned.
Colosseum, Forum and Palatine are sold together and share a valid period. Start underground at the Colosseum, come up into the arena, then walk the Forum and climb the Palatine for the view back down.
Tip Start at opening or after 15:00. The Forum has no shade and is punishing between June and September.
San Luigi dei Francesi has the St Matthew cycle, Santa Maria del Popolo the Conversion of St Paul and Crucifixion of St Peter, Sant'Agostino the Madonna of Loreto. All parish churches, all free.
Tip Carry one-euro coins for the light boxes that illuminate the chapels, and avoid Mass times.
The Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain and Campo de' Fiori are ten minutes apart and completely different places at eleven at night, lit and half empty.
Tip The Trevi is impossible by day and quite manageable very late. It is floodlit all night.
The neighbourhood built around the old slaughterhouse, where the quinto quarto tradition comes from. The covered market for lunch, the trattorias for coda alla vaccinara and carbonara made properly.
Tip Monte Testaccio, the hill behind, is made of an estimated 53 million broken Roman amphorae.
The Via Appia Antica runs south from the city past catacombs, tombs and the aqueduct park, closed to most traffic on Sundays. Basalt paving laid in the fourth century BC, still there.
Tip Rent a bike at the visitor centre. The stones are rough — this is not a smooth ride, and it is better for it.
The quietest of the seven hills: the Giardino degli Aranci with its terrace over the city, the basilica of Santa Sabina, and the keyhole in the Knights of Malta gate framing St Peter's dome.
Tip There is now usually a queue for the keyhole. Come early morning, or accept it and enjoy the orange garden instead.
Local food
Roman cooking is a small, fixed repertoire executed obsessively — peasant and butcher's food rather than court cuisine, and all the better for it.
Carbonara (egg, guanciale, pecorino, pepper — no cream), cacio e pepe (pecorino and pepper emulsified with pasta water), amatriciana (guanciale, tomato, pecorino) and gricia, the ancestor of all three.
Where to try it Testaccio and Trastevere trattorias. If a menu mentions cream in the carbonara, leave.
Alla giudia — a whole artichoke flattened and deep-fried until the leaves crisp like petals, from the Jewish Ghetto — and alla romana, braised with mint and garlic. In season roughly February to May.
Where to try it The restaurants of the Ghetto around Via del Portico d'Ottavia for the fried version.
A fried rice ball with ragù and a core of mozzarella that pulls into a thread when you bite it — supplì al telefono, named for the telephone cord. The Roman answer to the Sicilian arancino.
Where to try it Pizzerias and friggitorie, eaten standing up while you wait for the pizza.
Roman pizza is thin and crisp, quite unlike Neapolitan. Pizza al taglio is baked in long trays, cut with scissors and sold by weight — the best cheap lunch in the city.
Where to try it Any forno with a queue at 13:00. Point at what you want and say how much.
The 'fifth quarter' — what the slaughterhouse workers were paid in. Coda alla vaccinara (oxtail braised with celery and cocoa), trippa alla romana, sweetbreads. Rome does offal better than anywhere in Europe.
Where to try it Testaccio, which invented the tradition. Thursday is traditionally gnocchi day and Saturday tripe.
The maritozzo is a soft sweet bun split and filled with an absurd quantity of whipped cream, eaten for breakfast. Gelato is a separate religion, best where the tubs are covered and the pistachio is brown.
Where to try it Bars for maritozzi in the morning; gelaterie advertising 'produzione propria' in the evening.
Accommodation
Rome is walkable enough that any central district works. The choice is really about what you want to be surrounded by after dark.
Transport
Rome has two airports and sits at the centre of Italy's high-speed rail network, which makes it the natural start or end of almost any Italian trip.
Rome is a walking city interrupted by three metro lines. Distances look larger on the map than they feel on the ground.
When to go
Rome's sights are overwhelmingly outdoors or unairconditioned, which makes the summer heat a practical problem rather than a comfort one. Winter is underrated.
The city at its best: 18–27°C, wisteria over the courtyards, long evenings and everything open. Easter week is the exception — the centre and the Vatican become extremely difficult.
Regularly 35°C and above, with no shade in the Forum and long outdoor queues. Romans leave in August, and many of the best neighbourhood restaurants close for two or three weeks.
The pick of the year. The heat breaks in mid-September, the light turns golden, artichoke season begins and the crowds fall away sharply after the first week.
Mild at 10–15°C, often sunny, and the great sights are walk-in rather than book-ahead. Short days and some rain, but the best value and the shortest queues of the year.
Worth planning around: Easter week, when the Vatican and the whole centre are at capacity, and the fortnight around Ferragosto on 15 August, when the heat peaks and family-run restaurants shut.
Itinerary
One major sight and one neighbourhood a day. This is deliberately less than most itineraries attempt, because Rome in the heat with three bookings a day is miserable.
The Colosseum, the Forum and the hill above them.
A full morning, and nothing else scheduled with it.
The Baroque city, on foot, with Caravaggio in between.
The best art in the city, then out of it.
Travel tips
Rome-specific practicalities, most of which are about booking, heat and pickpockets.
FAQ
Four to five. That gives you a day for the ancient core, a full morning for the Vatican, a day walking the Baroque centre and its churches, and a day for the Borghese plus something outside the walls like Ostia Antica or the Appian Way. Three days is possible but rushed; a week lets you do it at Roman pace, which is the right pace.
The Borghese Gallery, which sells strictly timed slots and is never available on the door. The Colosseum, especially the underground and arena-floor tickets. The Vatican Museums, where booking a first-slot entry saves an hour or more of queueing. Almost everything else — churches, the Pantheon, the Capitoline — can be walked into, though the Pantheon now charges a small fee.
April to early June and late September through October. Spring is warm and green with long evenings; autumn brings the artichokes and the best light of the year. Avoid July and August, when the city sits above 35°C, the Forum has no shade and many neighbourhood restaurants close for Ferragosto. Winter is mild, cheap and much quieter than people expect.
Monti for atmosphere and value, ten minutes from the Colosseum and on the metro. The centro storico if you want to step out into the Pantheon and do not mind paying for it. Prati for quiet, good food and the Vatican. Trastevere for evenings, accepting the noise. Testaccio if the food is the point. All of them are walkable to the centre.
Very. The historic centre is about three kilometres across, and the walk from the Colosseum to the Vatican takes fifty minutes and passes the Forum, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and the Tiber. The metro has only three lines because excavation keeps hitting archaeology, so walking is not just pleasant here — it is the primary way the city works.
Yes, with one specific caveat: pickpocketing on crowded public transport is organised and skilled. Metro line A between Termini and the Vatican and the 64 bus are the notorious routes. Keep bags closed and in front of you, use no back pockets, and be alert around Termini station. Violent crime against visitors is rare.
The four Roman pastas — carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana and gricia — none of which contain cream. Fried artichokes in the Jewish Ghetto between February and May. Supplì with your pizza. Pizza al taglio by weight for lunch. And, in Testaccio, the quinto quarto offal cooking the neighbourhood invented, which Rome does better than anywhere in Europe.
Keep exploring
Places that pair well with Rome, whether you have a few spare days or are building a longer route.
Campania, Italy
A UNESCO-listed historic centre of Greek street plans and Baroque churches, the museum holding everything dug out of Pompeii, and the birthplace of pizza.
Don't miss Pompeii — 66 hectares of a Roman town stopped mid-morning in AD 79, with the volcano that did it still on the skyline.
Explore Destination — Naples & PompeiiTuscany, Italy
A compact city holding the densest concentration of Renaissance art anywhere, with Chianti, Siena and the Val d'Orcia within an hour of its walls.
Don't miss Brunelleschi's dome of 1436 — still the largest masonry dome ever built, and you can climb inside it.
Explore Destination — Florence & TuscanyVeneto, Italy
The strangest working city in Europe — Byzantine mosaics, Tintoretto by the acre, cicchetti bars down alleys, and a lagoon of glass furnaces and coloured houses behind it.
Don't miss The Grand Canal from the deck of a number 1 vaporetto, which costs the price of a bus ticket.
Explore Destination — VeniceMarmara, Turkey
The only city on two continents, holding the buildings of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, a covered bazaar of 4,000 shops, and a waterway running through the middle of it.
Don't miss Hagia Sophia — a cathedral for 916 years, a mosque for 481, a museum for 86, and a mosque again since 2020.
Explore Destination — IstanbulRead next
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