The Colosseum is the largest Roman amphitheater ever built, in the heart of Rome, at the eastern edge of the Forum. Almost two thousand years after it opened, it is still the symbol of the city and one of its greatest attractions.
It is an...
St. Peter's Basilica stands in the Vatican, on the spot where tradition places the tomb of the apostle Peter. It is the largest Catholic church, a masterpiece of the Renaissance and the Baroque whose dome rules the city's skyline from...
The Trevi Fountain is Rome's largest Baroque fountain: a palace facade turned into a seascape, with a god advancing among rocks and winged horses, in the Trevi district. It stands in a square so small that you discover its immensity all of a...
The Vatican Museums are the popes' great art collection, in the Vatican: ancient sculptures, paintings, tapestries, Egyptian mummies and rooms frescoed by Michelangelo and Raphael. They hold everything the popes have piled up over the centuries,...
The Pantheon is the Roman temple of all the gods, in the heart of the historic center, and the best-preserved ancient monument in Rome. Behind a porch of giant columns hides a round hall covered by a dome with a hole at the top.
First to...
Piazza Navona is Rome's most scenic Baroque square: long, narrow, closed in by ocher palaces, with three fountains in a row and the undulating facade of a church. It is a place to walk, to look around and to stop at a cafe table.
In the...
Piazza del Popolo is the great elliptical square at the foot of the Pincio, where the Via Flaminia enters the city. For centuries everyone arriving in Rome from the north passed through here: the square was meant to make an impression, and it...
The Capitoline Museums are Rome's civic museums, on the Piazza del Campidoglio designed by Michelangelo. They gather ancient sculptures, mosaics and paintings in the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Nuovo, linked by an underground...
Villa Borghese is Rome's great park, 80 hectares of green above the Pincio, among tree-lined avenues, little lakes, fountains and museums. It is the green lung where you can stroll between one visit and the next.
It has nine entrances,...
The Galleria Borghese is an art museum in the villa of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, inside the Villa Borghese park. It holds sculptures by Bernini and paintings by Caravaggio and Raphael in a handful of rooms: it is one of the places where you...
The Catacombs of Domitilla are a Christian cemetery dug beneath the countryside along the Via Ardeatina, on the southern outskirts of Rome. Galleries on several levels run through the tuff, with tombs, chapels and frescoes from the 2nd to the 4th...
The National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia is the museum of the Etruscans in Rome, in a Renaissance villa just outside the walls, near Villa Borghese. It gathers the Etruscan and Faliscan antiquities of Lazio, southern Etruria and Umbria:...
The Galleria Doria Pamphilj is a great private art collection, displayed in the family palace between Via del Corso and the Collegio Romano. It is still the largest inhabited private palace in Rome.
The most famous painting is the portrait...
The MAXXI is the national museum of 21st-century arts, in Rome's Flaminio district. It was designed by the architect Zaha Hadid, and the building itself, with its curves of pale concrete, is the first thing to see.
The museum has two...
The Roman Forum and the Palatine are the ancient heart of Rome: a valley of ruined temples, arches and basilicas, between the Capitoline Hill and the Colosseum, and above it the hill where legend has the city born. For centuries it was the...
The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is one of Rome's four papal basilicas, on the Esquiline Hill. It is the only basilica in Rome to have kept its early Christian structure, even if enriched over the centuries by works of every...
Hadrian's Mausoleum, today's Castel Sant'Angelo, is a huge stone cylinder on the right bank of the Tiber, next to the Vatican. It began as an imperial tomb and became a fortress, a prison and a refuge for the popes: today it is a museum you climb...
St. Peter's Square is the great piazza in front of the basilica, at the edge of Rome's historic center, in the Vatican. It is a Baroque masterpiece: two arms of columns embrace it, and every day pilgrims from all over the world gather...
The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral of Rome, not St. Peter's: it stands on the Caelian Hill and is "mother and head of all the churches of the City and of the world." Visitors find an enormous basilica with five aisles, colossal...
The Baths of Caracalla are the great bath complex the emperor Caracalla had built on the Little Aventine in Rome, near the start of the Appian Way. Today they are imposing ruins, with walls as tall as palaces, and in summer they host opera...
Piazza di Spagna is one of Rome's most famous squares, at the foot of the Spanish Steps up to Trinità dei Monti. Seen from above it is shaped like a butterfly: two triangles joined at the tip. It is where Romans and travelers have been meeting...
The Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti) are the great Baroque staircase linking Piazza di Spagna to the church of Trinità dei Monti, on the Pincian Hill, in Rome. They have 136 steps, ramps that open and close and garden terraces: a...
The Domus Aurea, the "Golden House" of the emperor Nero, was an enormous urban villa in the heart of Rome, between the Palatine, the Esquiline and the Caelian. Today you can visit its pavilion on the Oppian Hill: underground rooms with frescoes...
Palazzo Borghese is one of Rome's great palaces, between Via di Ripetta and Piazza Borghese, in the Campo Marzio. Romans call it the Borghese "harpsichord," because seen from above it has the shape of a harpsichord. Today it is a private...
Piazza Venezia is the great monumental crossroads at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, in the center of Rome. Here Via del Corso, Via dei Fori Imperiali, Via del Teatro di Marcello and the axes of Via Nazionale and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II meet....
The Circus Maximus is the ancient hippodrome of Rome, a long track in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine, where the Romans watched chariot races. Today it is a large open lawn, with traces of the stands and the curve, which hosts...
The Quirinal Palace is the residence of the President of the Republic, on the hill of the same name, one of the highest points in Rome. With about 1,200 rooms and 110,500 square meters, it is one of the largest palaces in the world, and it housed...
The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is one of Rome's four papal basilicas and the second largest after St. Peter's. It stands along Via Ostiense, about two kilometers outside the Aurelian Walls, where tradition places the tomb of the...
The Arch of Constantine is a great triumphal arch with three passageways, between the Colosseum and the Palatine, in the heart of ancient Rome. It was inaugurated in AD 315 to celebrate Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge,...
The Fountain of the Four Rivers is the great Baroque fountain by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, at the center of Piazza Navona, in front of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. Four marble giants hold up an obelisk: it is the focal point of Rome's most...
Tiber Island is the only urban island in the Tiber, a small strip of land in the middle of the river, in the center of Rome. Two ancient bridges link it to the two banks: the Fabricius Bridge and the Cestius Bridge.
It has a shape...
The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is the main church of Trastevere, in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, in Rome. Inside it keeps some of the most beautiful medieval mosaics in the city: a good reason to go in, even if you did not come to...
The Imperial Forums are five great monumental squares built in the heart of Rome over a century and a half, between 46 BC and AD 113, by Julius Caesar and the emperors up to Trajan. They stretch between the Capitoline, the Quirinal and the...
The Capitoline Hill is the smallest of Rome's hills, but it has always been its center: in antiquity the sacred hill of the Temple of Jupiter, since the Middle Ages the seat of the city government. At the top is the square designed by...
The Janiculum is the hill on the right bank of the Tiber, above Trastevere: it is not one of the traditional seven hills, but it is one of the most panoramic spots in Rome. From its tree-lined avenues you can see the whole city, from the domes of...
Campo de' Fiori is one of the liveliest squares in central Rome, between Piazza Navona and Palazzo Farnese: by day an open-air market, in the evening bars packed with young people, and in the middle the dark statue of Giordano Bruno. It is the...
Palazzo Barberini is the Baroque residence of the family of Pope Urban VIII, on Via delle Quattro Fontane, a few steps from Piazza Barberini. Inside is one of Rome's great picture galleries, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, with masterpieces...
Trajan's Markets are a large Roman brick complex on the slopes of the Quirinal, next to the Imperial Forums. Since 2007 they have housed the Museum of the Imperial Forums, with original pieces and casts to help you picture the monuments...
The Bioparco di Roma is the capital's zoo, in the northern part of Villa Borghese: the oldest zoological garden in Italy, with about 1,200 animals of about 150 species among mammals, reptiles and birds. It makes a great day out for families, but...
Palazzo Montecitorio is the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, in the heart of Rome a short walk from the Pantheon: a Baroque palace that began as a design by Bernini, where the deputies of the Italian Parliament have sat since 1871.
The...