Things to do in Rome
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Colosseum
The Colosseum is the most extraordinary of all Rome’s monuments. It’s not just the amazing completeness of the place, or its size, but the sense of its gory history that resonates: it was here that gladiators met in mortal combat and condemned prisoners fought off hungry lions. Two thousand or so years on, it’s still hauling in the crowds. Don’t let the lengthy queue put you off: just pop down to the Palatine ticket office, buy your combined ticket there, and on returning march straight in.
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Pantheon
Competition is fierce, but the Pantheon is surely ancient Rome’s most astonishing building. This Roman temple has been standing for almost 2000 years, and it’s a unique, unparalleled experience to enter its great doors and have your vision directed upwards, just as it would have been for the ancient Romans. Its current form dates to around AD 120, when the emperor Hadrian built the Pantheon over Marcus Agrippa’s original temple (27 BC). For centuries, historians read the name Agrippa in the inscription on the pediment and thought that Hadrian’s version was the 1st-century-BC original. When excavations in the 19th century revealed traces of the earlier temple, they realise…
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Trevi Fountain
Immortalised by Anita Ekberg’s dip in La Dolce Vita, the Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi) is Rome’s largest and most famous fountain. The flamboyant baroque ensemble was designed by Nicola Salvi in 1732 and depicts Neptune’s chariot being led by Tritons with sea horses – one wild, one docile – representing the moods of the sea. The water comes from the aqua virgo, a 1st-century-BC underground aqueduct, and the name Trevi refers to the tre vie (three roads) that converge at the fountain. The famous custom is to throw a coin into the fountain, thus ensuring your return to the Eternal City. According to the same tradition if you throw in a second coin you’ll fall …
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St Peter’s Basilica
In Vatican City, a city of astounding churches, St Peter’s Basilica outdazzles them all. Awe-inspiringly huge, rich and spectacular, it’s a monument to centuries of artistic genius. On a busy day, around 20,000 visitors pass through here. If you want to be one of them, remember to dress appropriately – no shorts, miniskirts or bare shoulders. If you want to hire an audioguide (€5), they’re available at a desk in the cloakroom to the right of the entrance. Free English-language guided tours of the basilica are run from the Vatican tourist office, the Centro Servizi Pellegrini e Turisti, at 9.45am on Tuesday and Thursday and at 2.15pm every afternoon between Monday and Fr…
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Vatican Museums
Visiting the Vatican Museums is an unforgettable experience that requires strength, stamina and patience. You’ll need to be on top of your game to endure the inevitable queues – if not for a ticket then for the security checks – and enjoy what is undoubtedly one of the world’s great museum complexes.
Founded by Pope Julius II in the early 16th century and enlarged by successive pontiffs, the museums are housed in what is known collectively as the Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano. This massive 5.5-hectare complex consists of two palaces – the Vatican palace nearest St Peter’s and the Belvedere Palace – joined by two long galleries. On the inside are three courtyards: th…
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Chiesa del Gesù
Rome’s most important Jesuit church, the Chiesa del Gesù is a much-copied example of Counter-Reformation architecture. It was built between 1551 and 1584 with money donated by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Although the façade by Giacomo della Porta is impressive, it is the awesome, interior that is the real attraction. Designed by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, a pupil of Michelangelo, it’s a shimmering ensemble of gold and marble. Of the art on display, the most astounding is the Trionfo del Nome di Gesù (Triumph of the Name of Jesus), the swirling, hypnotic vault fresco by Giovanni Battista Gaulli (aka Il Baciccia). Baciccia also painted the cupola frescoes and desig…
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Piazza del Popolo
For centuries the sight of public executions, this elegant neoclassical piazza is a superb people-watching spot. It was originally laid out in 1538 to provide a grandiose entrance to the city – at the time, and for centuries before, it was the main northern gateway into the city. Since then it has been extensively altered, most recently by Giuseppe Valadier in 1823. Guarding its southern entrance are Carlo Rainaldi’s twin 17th-century baroque churches, Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Chiesa di Santa Maria in Montesanto, while over on the northern flank is the Porta del Popolo, created by Bernini in 1655. In the centre, the 36m-high Egyptian obelisk was moved he…
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Campo de’ Fiori
Noisy and colourful, ‘Il Campo’ is a major focus of Roman life: by day it hosts a much-loved market, while at night it turns into a raucous open-air pub. For centuries, it was the site of public executions, and in 1600 the philosophising monk Giordano Bruno, immortalised in Ettore Ferrari’s sinister statue, was burned at the stake here for heresy. Many of the streets surrounding Il Campo are named after the artisans who traditionally occupied them: Via dei Cappellari (hatters), Via dei Baullari (trunk makers) and Via dei Chiavari (key makers). Via dei Giubbonari (jacket makers) is still full of clothing shops.
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Siciliainbocca
Lemon-yellow and lined in dazzling southern ceramics, this trattoria is sunny in demeanour and colour. It's a great place to sample sumptuous seafood, Sicilian specialities like caponata (browned vegetables, anchovies and capers), and the island's legendary desserts, such as cannoli (fried pastry tubes filled with ricotta) accompanied by pantelleria, the great muscatel. There's another branch in Flaminio (06 324 01 87; Via Flaminia 390; ;Tue-Sun).
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‘Gusto
If Terence Conran were Italian, he might have dreamed up ‘Gusto, once a mould-breaking warehouse-style gastronomic complex. It’s still buzzing after all these years, and is a great place to sit on the terrace and eye up the new Richard Meier-designed Ara Pacis museum. Go for the Neapolitan-style pizzas rather than the restaurant fare, which receives mixed reports. There’s a recommended brunch (weekends) and lunchtime buffet.
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Alfredo e Ada
Find a seat at this tiny brick-arched and wood-panelled place, with its spindly marble-topped tables, and then eat what Ada puts in front of you (there’s no menu). It’ll be simple tasty staples like pasta with tomato sauce and salsiccia con fagioli (sausage with beans). Dessert comes from Ada’s legendary biscuit tin.
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Lo Zozzone
The affectionately named ‘dirty one’ is sparklingly clean, and growing smarter by the year, with tables inside and out. It also has some of Rome’s best panini. Pay at the register for a pizza bianca, then ask for it to be stuffed with your belly’s desire at the bar.
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Il Posto Accanto
On pretty Via del Boschetto, this homely, family-run restaurant is small - there are only 25 places - and instantly memorable, lined by harvest-festival displays of fruit and veg. The food is splendid, with homemade ravioli and fish among the house specialities.
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Gelateria Giolitti
This started as a dairy in 1900 and still keeps the hoards happy with succulent sorbets and creamy combinations. Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn swung by in Roman Holiday and it used to deliver marron glacé to Pope John Paul II.
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Ibiz – Artigianato in Cuoio
In this pint-sized workshop, Elisa Nepi and her father craft exquisite, well-priced leather goods, including bags, belts and sandals, in simple but classy designs and myriad colours.
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Da Giggetto
The atmospheric ghetto, rustic interiors, white-jacketed waiters, Roman-Jewish cooking – who needs more? Celebrate all things fried by tucking into the marvellous carciofi alla giudia and follow on with delicious calamari (fried squid). In the warmer months, fight your way to an outside table under the shadow of the ruins of the Portico d’Ottavia.
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Piazza Navona
With its ornate fountains, baroque palazzi and pavement cafés, Piazza Navona is central Rome’s showcase square. Like many of the city’s great landmarks, it sits on the site of an ancient monument, in this case the 1st-century-AD Stadio di Domiziano. This 30,000-seat stadium, remains of which can be seen from Piazza Tor Sanguigna, used to host games – the name Navona is a corruption of the Greek word agon, meaning public games. Inevitably, though, it fell into disrepair and it wasn’t until the 15th century that the crumbling arena was paved over and Rome’s central market transferred here from Campidoglio.
Today interest centres on Bernini’s extravagant Fontana…
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Museo Nazionale Romano: Palazzo Altemps
Just north of Piazza Navona, Palazzo Altemps is a gem. A beautiful, late-15th-century palazzo, it houses the best of the Museo Nazionale Romano’s formidable collection of classical sculpture. Many of the pieces come from the celebrated Ludovisi collection, amassed by Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi in the 17th century. Prize exhibits include the 5th-century Trono Ludovisi (Ludovisi Throne), a carved marble throne depicting Aphrodite being plucked from the sea as a newborn babe. It shares a room with two colossal heads, one of which is the goddess Juno and dates from around 600 BC. The wall frieze (about half of which remains) depicts the 10 plagues of Egypt and the Exodus. E…
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Imperial Forums
The expanse of ruins to the northeast of Via dei Fori Imperiali are known collectively as the Imperial Forums (Fori Imperiali). Constructed between 42 BC and AD 112, they were largely buried in 1933 when Mussolini built Via dei Fori Imperiali. Excavations have since unearthed much of them, but work continues and visits are limited to the Foro di Traiano (Trajan’s Forum), accessible through the Museo dei Fori Imperiali. Little that is recognisable remains of the forum except for some pillars from the Basilica Ulpia and the Colonna di Traiano (Trajan’s Column), whose minutely detailed reliefs celebrate Trajan’s military victories over the Dacians (from modern-day Romania)…
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Piazza di Spagna & the Spanish Steps
Piazza di Spagna and the famous Spanish Steps (Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) have been a magnet for foreigners since the 18th century. In the late 1700s the area was much loved by English visitors on the Grand Tour and was known to locals as er ghetto de l’inglesi (the English ghetto).
The piazza was named after the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, although the staircase, designed by the Italian Francesco de Sanctis and built in 1725 with a legacy from the French, leads to the French Chiesa della Trinità dei Monti.
At the foot of the steps, the fountain of a sinking boat, the Barcaccia (1627), is believed to be by Pietro Bernini, father of the more famous Gian Lo…
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Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva
Built on the site of an ancient temple to Minerva, the Dominican Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva is the only Gothic church in Rome, although little remains of the original 13th-century design. Inside, in the Cappella Carafa (also called the Cappella della Annunciazione), you’ll find two superb 15th-century frescoes by Filippino Lippi and the majestic tomb of Pope Paul IV. Left of the high altar is one of Michelangelo’s lesser-known sculptures, Cristo Risorto (Christ Bearing the Cross; 1520). An altarpiece of the Madonna and Child in the second chapel in the northern transept is attributed to Fra Angelico, the Dominican friar and painter, who is also buried in the …
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Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi
Church to Rome’s French community since 1589, this baroque church boasts no less than three canvases by Caravaggio: La Vocazione di San Matteo (The Calling of Saint Matthew), Il Martiro di San Matteo (The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew) and San Matteo e l’Angelo (Saint Matthew and the Angel), together known as the St Matthew cycle. These were among Caravaggio’s earliest religious works, painted between 1600 and 1602, but they are inescapably his, featuring down-to-earth realism and stunning use of chiaroscuro (a three-dimensional effect created with contrasting highlights and dark shading). Before you leave the church, take a moment to enjoy Domenichino’s colourful 17th-c…
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Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis
This pint-sized church marks the spot where St Peter, while fleeing Rome, met a vision of Jesus going the other way. When Peter asked: ‘Domine, quo vadis?’ (‘Lord, where are you going?’), Jesus replied ‘Venio Roman iterum crucifigi’ (‘I am coming to Rome to be crucified again’). Reluctantly deciding to join him, Peter tramped back into town where he was immediately arrested and executed, as portrayed in Caravaggio’s Crocifissione di San Pietro (Crucifixion of St Peter) in the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo. In the centre of the aisle are copies of two holy footprints supposed to belong to Christ; the originals are up the road in the Basilica di San Seb…
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Trastevere
Although its traditionally proletarian nature is changing as the crumbling palazzi become gentrified, a stroll among the labyrinthine alleys of Trastevere still reaps small gems of a bygone past. Washing strung out from the apartments in best Mama-leone tradition has everyone sighing and reaching for the Kodaks.
The lovely Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is the area's heart. It's a true Roman square - by day peopled by mothers with strollers, chatting locals and guidebook-toting tourists, by night with artisans selling their craft work, young Romans looking for a good time, and the odd homeless person looking for a bed. The streets east of the piazza is where you'll find…
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Museo e Galleria Borghese
Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1579–1633) was the most knowledgeable and ruthless art collector of his day, and his collection, in the Museo e Galleria Borghese is as dazzling as his park. If you only have time (or inclination) for one art gallery in Rome, make it this one, which is not only exquisite, but also provides the perfect introduction to Renaissance and baroque art without being overwhelming. It’s housed in the Casino Borghese, whose neoclassical look is the result of a 17th-century revamp. To limit numbers, visitors are admitted at two-hourly intervals, so you’ll need to call to prebook, and enter at an allotted entry time, but trust us, it’s worth it.
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