The best attractions, monuments, museums, archaeological sites, neighborhoods and experiences to enjoy in Rome.
The Vatican Necropolis beneath St Peter’s Basilica is one of Rome’s most restricted and fascinating archaeological visits. Often called the Scavi Tour, it takes small guided groups through the ancient burial area associated with the tomb of St Peter. This is not the same as the Vatican Grottoes or a standard basilica visit. Capacity is…
The Vatican Gardens occupy roughly half of Vatican City and offer a very different experience from the museum galleries and St Peter’s Square. They contain landscaped gardens, fountains, monuments, devotional sites and views across the tiny state. Access is controlled rather than open like a normal city park, so the essential planning step is to…
The Keats-Shelley House is one of Rome’s smallest famous museums and one of its most emotionally specific. The house stands directly beside the Spanish Steps, in the rooms where the English Romantic poet John Keats spent the final months of his life and died in 1821. Today it preserves books, manuscripts, portraits, letters and memorabilia…
Museo di Roma in Trastevere is a useful place to understand the neighborhood beyond restaurants and nightlife. Set in the former Carmelite convent of Sant’Egidio, the museum explores aspects of Roman popular life, social history, photography and changing urban culture. Temporary exhibitions can be as important as the permanent collection, so the experience varies more…
Rome is famous for antiquity and Baroque art, but the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea proves that the city’s cultural story did not stop in the seventeenth century. The museum, commonly shortened to GNAMC, stands beside Villa Borghese and holds one of Italy’s most important collections of nineteenth-, twentieth- and twenty-first-century art. It is…
Santo Stefano Rotondo is one of Rome’s most unusual early Christian churches. Hidden on the Celio, its circular plan immediately sets it apart from the long basilican interiors visitors see elsewhere in the city. The quiet setting and complex history make it an excellent stop for travelers interested in architecture, early Christianity and places that…
San Lorenzo fuori le Mura is one of Rome’s historic pilgrimage basilicas and an excellent destination for travelers who want to move beyond the compact tourist center. Standing beside the monumental Verano Cemetery, the basilica preserves layers of early Christian, medieval and modern history around the venerated tomb of Saint Lawrence. It is very different…
The Church of the Gesù, officially the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, is one of the most influential churches in Rome. Built as the mother church of the Society of Jesus, it helped establish an architectural model that spread far beyond the city. Inside, the restrained Renaissance structure gives way to an…
Galleria Corsini is one of Rome’s most rewarding small art museums. Housed in Palazzo Corsini on Via della Lungara, it preserves the atmosphere of an eighteenth-century picture gallery rather than presenting paintings in a neutral white-cube setting. Works by artists including Rubens, Van Dyck, Murillo, Ribera and Beato Angelico are displayed within historic rooms that…
The Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella is one of the most recognizable monuments on the Appian Way: a massive cylindrical Roman tomb standing above the ancient road, later incorporated into a medieval fortified complex. Its survival is not an accident. Size, strategic location and reuse helped preserve the structure while many other tombs along the Via…