Three thousand years in one walkable centre, and the food is the second reason.
View on globeNinety seconds on Rome
Four days, and each takes a subject: ancient, baroque, the Vatican, then Trastevere and the Appian Way. A fifth buys a day out to Ostia Antica. Three days is possible and means choosing between the Forum and the Vatican.
Mostly on foot. The historic centre is about three kilometres across and two Metro lines run under it, both taking a bank card at the gate. Taxis are picked up at ranks and not flagged down in the street.
April, May and October. July and August run past 35 degrees and the day gets planned around shade. The Jubilee crowds of 2025 eased through 2026, though the Vatican still fills from the moment it opens.
Italian. English is spoken in every hotel and museum and in most restaurants in the centre. A buongiorno on entering a shop is the convention and it opens most doors.
The euro, and cards have been accepted across the trade by law since 2026. The coperto on a restaurant bill is a per-person cover charge, it is normal and not a scam, and a tip on top is not expected.
Fiumicino FCO and Ciampino CIA. The Leonardo Express runs non-stop from Fiumicino to Termini in 32 minutes. Ciampino takes the budget airlines and is about 40 minutes from the city by bus.
Rome is layered rather than laid out. A church stands on a temple that stands on a house, and the centre is small enough to walk from the Colosseum to the Vatican in an hour, crossing all of it.
The ancient city needs one day and a timed ticket: Colosseum, Forum and Palatine on one pass. The baroque city needs no tickets at all. The Pantheon, the fountains and the squares are open to the street.
The Vatican is a morning. Book the museums for the first slot, walk the Sistine Chapel before the coaches arrive, and take the passage straight into St Peter's rather than queueing again outside.
Eat where Romans eat: Testaccio for the classics, Trastevere for the evening, Monti for the wine bars. Lunch is the long meal, the pasta comes in four Roman forms, and the coffee is taken standing up.
The old city inside the bend of the Tiber: the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori, and the lanes between them where most first visits are spent. Everything is on foot, the traffic is kept out, and the hotels here put the whole centre at the door.
The three streets that fan out from Piazza del Popolo, with the Spanish Steps at the centre and the Via Condotti's fashion houses between them. It is the grand-hotel quarter, the Hassler and the de Russie both here, and the Borghese gardens are up the hill behind it.
The oldest rione, between the Forum and Santa Maria Maggiore, a village of wine bars, vintage shops and a small piazza with a fountain that fills up every evening. It is the neighbourhood to stay in for the ancient city, five minutes from the Colosseum and out of its crowd.
Walk it early before the drive north; parking is hard, so take a taxi from the hotel and leave the car for later.
The orderly nineteenth-century grid north of the Vatican, with the Via Cola di Rienzo for shopping and the Vatican Museums a ten-minute walk away. It is where Romans live and eat well without the tourist prices, and the best base for a Vatican morning.
The old slaughterhouse district south of the Aventine, the home of Roman cooking, with the covered market, the pyramid of Cestius and the Non-Catholic Cemetery where Keats is buried. Come for lunch at the market and stay for the evening.
Only worth it with a timed ticket booked in advance; otherwise the queue eats the morning the drive needs.
The fastest great sight in Rome: twenty minutes inside and back on the road north.
The civic and commercial centre of ancient Rome, stretching across ruins of temples, basilicas, and government buildings spanning roughly 900 years of construction and habitation.
The largest church building in the world, completed in 1626 and crowned by Michelangelo's dome. Houses papal altars and Renaissance/Baroque masterworks.
A Baroque fountain completed in 1762, depicting Oceanus in a chariot drawn by sea horses, fed by the Acqua Vergine aqueduct.
A 80-hectare landscaped estate with walking paths, lakes, temples, and the Galleria Borghese. Contains sculptures, fountains, and panoramic views of the city.
Quieter than anything else in Rome and a sensible last stop on the way to the northbound autostrada; ninety minutes covers it.
Three churches on top of each other near the Colosseum: a twelfth-century basilica over a fourth-century one over a Roman house and a temple of Mithras. The descent is the point.
The morning market square of the old city, with the statue of Giordano Bruno, burnt here in 1600, watching the stalls. By night it is the centre's bar scene.
The orange garden on the Aventine with a terrace over the Tiber to St Peter's, and the keyhole at the Knights of Malta's gate two doors down that frames the dome. Free, and best at dusk.
Zaha Hadid's museum of twenty-first-century art in the Flaminio district, the building as much the exhibit as the shows. Tram 2 from Piazza del Popolo.
The oval square inside the old northern gate, with an Egyptian obelisk in the middle and twin churches at the head of the Tridente. The Pincio terrace above it is the sunset view.
The baroque square on the footprint of Domitian's stadium, with Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers in the middle and Borromini's Sant'Agnese behind it. The cafes on the square charge for the view; the lanes off it do not.
A 36-metre marble pyramid of 12 BC built as a tomb for a magistrate, now in the city wall beside the Testaccio gate. The interior opens a few days a month by booking.
The oldest church in Rome dedicated to Mary, on a square that is the living room of Trastevere, with twelfth-century mosaics in the apse and the facade lit gold at night.
The semicircle of brick shops and offices beside Trajan's Forum, the ancient city's shopping centre, now the Museum of the Imperial Forums.
Entry is by timed two-hour slot booked in advance, so take the earliest one and be on the highway by eleven.
Two palaces on Capitoline Hill housing classical sculptures, bronzes, and paintings including the she-wolf of Rome and works by Caravaggio and Guercino.
One of the world's greatest art collections, spanning Egyptian antiquities, Renaissance masterworks, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo (1508, 1512).
Originally built as a mausoleum for the Roman emperor Hadrian around 139 AD, this cylindrical fortress later became a papal residence and military stronghold. It offers views across Rome from its terrace.
A Renaissance palace housing classical sculptures and modern art, including the Ludovisi Throne and works by the Ludovisi collection.
This monumental staircase of 135 steps, completed in 1725, connects the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of Trinità dei Monti. It is a major gathering point and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Houses the National Roman Museum's collection of classical sculpture, mosaics, and frescoes from the Republican and Imperial periods.
The Roman road of 312 BC running south out of the city, closed to cars on Sundays, with tombs, catacombs and the original basalt paving. Hire a bike at the park office and ride to the Villa dei Quintili.
Augustus's altar of peace of 9 BC, under Richard Meier's glass pavilion on the Tiber beside the emperor's mausoleum. The carved procession is the finest Roman relief in the city.
The brick shell of a third-century bath complex for 1,600 bathers at a time, with the mosaics still in the floors. Rarely crowded, and the summer opera season is staged inside it.
The marble mask in the portico of Santa Maria in Cosmedin that, in Roman Holiday, bit off the hand of a liar. The queue is for the photograph; the church behind it is Rome's finest medieval interior.
The largest of the Christian catacombs on the Appian Way, with twenty kilometres of galleries and the crypt of the popes. Guided visits only, in most languages, every half hour.
The grass valley between the Palatine and the Aventine where the chariot races ran, big enough for 150,000. Free to walk, and the Palatine rises straight above it.
Nero's golden house under the Oppian Hill, a working excavation open at weekends with hard hats and a virtual-reality reconstruction of the rooms. Book weeks ahead.
A private palace on the Corso still owned by the family, with Velázquez's portrait of Innocent X and a Caravaggio in gilded galleries. The audio guide is read by a family member.
The hill above Trastevere with the terrace at Garibaldi's statue looking across every dome in the city. A cannon is fired at noon; the walk up from Trastevere takes twenty minutes.
The cemetery under the pyramid where Keats, Shelley and Gramsci are buried, a garden of cypresses and cats. A donation at the gate; closed Sunday afternoons.
The cathedral of Rome and the oldest basilica in the West, with Borromini's nave and the Scala Santa across the square. Free, and quiet compared with St Peter's.
One of the four papal basilicas, on the Esquiline, with fifth-century mosaics in the nave and a ceiling gilded with the first gold from the Americas. Free to enter.
The covered market of the district, rebuilt in 2012, with the produce stalls in front and the lunch counters at the back: the trapizzino and the panino with the boiled beef are the orders.
A Renaissance banker's villa on the Trastevere bank with Raphael's Galatea and the loggia frescoes, small and almost always empty. Mornings only, closed Sundays except the second of the month.
The white marble monument to the first king of Italy on Piazza Venezia, with the tomb of the unknown soldier and a lift to a terrace over the Forum. Romans call it the typewriter.
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