Book the Colosseum Book now
Rome is not visited in chronological order: you walk through it. In one morning you go from the travertine of the Colosseum to the dome of the Pantheon, and by the afternoon you are standing in front of a Caravaggio in a church with no ticket desk. Here you will find guides to the stops worth the queue, the works worth looking for and the itineraries I built on foot.
3 articles
Start here
If this is your first time in Rome, start with these three. The Colosseum is timed entry and the same ticket covers the Roman Forum and the Palatine; at the Vatican Museums the only way past the queue is to book. The Pantheon is the quickest of the three and sits halfway between the other two, so it works well as a break.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Colosseum: how to visit it, which ticket to choose and what to really look at
13 min read Monuments & landmarks · EuropaThe Pantheon in Rome: what to see, what the ticket costs and why the dome stands up
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · EuropaTour of the Vatican Museums in Rome: 9 masterpieces you absolutely must know (updated 2026)
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6 articles
Ancient Rome
The Colosseum ticket also covers the Roman Forum and the Palatine, so it pays to see them one after the other rather than spread them across three days. Ostia Antica is the alternative to Pompeii that sits half an hour from Rome: a whole city, with its streets and its houses. And what was dug out of these places ended up in the Museo Nazionale Romano, which is where you understand what you have just seen.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Colosseum: how to visit it, which ticket to choose and what to really look at
13 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Roman Forum and the Palatine: what to see and how to read the ruins
13 min read Monuments & landmarks · EuropaThe Pantheon in Rome: what to see, what the ticket costs and why the dome stands up
13 min read Monuments & landmarks · EuropaThe Appian Way: 5 things to discover on the queen of roads, a UNESCO site (updated 2026)
12 min read Monuments & landmarks · EuropaVisiting Ostia Antica: one of the most beautiful archaeological parks in the world (updated 2026)
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · EuropaNational Roman Museum: 6 works to see and how the combined ticket works
14 min read 6 articles
The museums of ancient Rome
Six venues holding what has been dug up in the city, and hardly any organised tour goes near them. The sites of the Museo Nazionale Romano are covered by a single ticket, valid for a week. Trajan’s Markets open every day, Monday included, and that fact alone rearranges a whole itinerary. The Centrale Montemartini is the only one outside the centre, and its statues stand among the engines of a power station.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Palazzo Massimo alle Terme: 8 artworks to see, from the Boxer to Livia’s frescoes
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Palazzo Altemps: 6 artworks to see, from the Ludovisi Gaul to the Ludovisi Juno
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Baths of Diocletian: 4 spaces to see, from the cloister attributed to Michelangelo to the Hall of Gold
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
The Museum of Rescued Art in the Octagonal Hall: the artworks coming home
9 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Trajan’s Markets: 7 artworks from the Museum of the Imperial Fora
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Centrale Montemartini: 7 artworks to see among the engines of Rome’s first power station
13 min read 6 articles
Museums and galleries
The Galleria Borghese admits visitors in timed slots and booking is compulsory for every ticket, free ones included: book that one before the others. The Doria Pamphilj is not a museum, it is the home of a family that still lives there, with the paintings hung where the men who bought them put them. The Capitoline and Palazzo Barberini are the two you can take slowly.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Tour of the Vatican Museums in Rome: 9 masterpieces you absolutely must know (updated 2026)
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · EuropaVisiting the Capitoline Museums: 8 must-see works you should know (updated 2026)
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · EuropaGalleria Borghese Rome: 10 masterpieces you absolutely must see (updated 2026)
17 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Doria Pamphilj Gallery: 6 works to see in the finest private collection in Rome
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Palazzo Barberini: 7 artworks to see, from the two Caravaggios to La Fornarina
14 min read Museums & masterpieces
The Farnesina Collection: the contemporary art hidden inside Italy’s Foreign Ministry (updated 2026)
5 min read 6 articles
The collections off the circuit
Six collections the Roman museum circuit skips, almost always for a practical reason. The Galleria Colonna opens on Friday and Saturday morning and that is all, Villa Farnesina closes at 14:00 and stays shut on Sundays apart from the second of the month. The Galleria Corsini is already inside the Palazzo Barberini ticket, which lasts twenty days, the Napoleonic Museum is free, and the Museo delle Civiltà is out at the EUR and holds four museums together. Villa Giulia is the largest of the six and is in the middle of a rehang: check which rooms are open on the day you go.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Villa Giulia Etruscan Museum: 8 works to see, and the tomb that arrived in 2026
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Villa Farnesina: 6 works to see, in the villa Raphael painted for a banker
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Galleria Colonna: 7 works to see, in a palace that opens two days a week
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Galleria Corsini: 6 works to see in the only intact eighteenth-century picture gallery
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Napoleonic Museum in Rome: 6 works to see, in a museum you get into free
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo delle Civiltà: 6 works to see at the EUR, in a museum remaking itself
12 min read 6 articles
The small museums
Six collections that take an hour each and that almost no visitor to Rome opens the door of. The Museo delle Mura, inside Porta San Sebastiano, is free, but the walkway along the Aurelian Walls has been closed for works since June 2026. The Museo Carlo Bilotti and the Museo Pietro Canonica are both inside Villa Borghese and share a combined ticket. The Museo di Roma in Trastevere holds the hundred and twenty Roesler Franz watercolours, which is to say the city demolished to build the Tiber embankments.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo di Roma in Trastevere: 6 works to see, and the 120 watercolours of a vanished Rome
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo Carlo Bilotti: 6 works to see in the Aranciera of Villa Borghese
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo Pietro Canonica: 6 works to see, in the house-studio inside Villa Borghese
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo Barracco: 6 works to see, in a palace called Farnesina by mistake
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo delle Mura: 6 things to see at Porta San Sebastiano, where you go in free
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo Boncompagni Ludovisi: 6 things to see, in a villa left to the state by a Swedish princess
11 min read 2 articles
Inside the villas
Two houses inside two villas. The Casina delle Civette, in Villa Torlonia, is the museum of Art Nouveau stained glass, and until 29 November 2026 the ticket includes an exhibition on Paolo Paschetto, who designed the emblem of the Italian Republic. Villa Medici, on the Pincio, is the French Academy: the garden and the Studiolo can be seen only on a guided tour, and the villa is closed on Tuesdays.
3 articles
The twentieth century and beyond
Three collections that in Rome always come after the ancient world, and together they cover two centuries. The Galleria Nazionale holds nearly twenty thousand works and almost no visitors. The MAXXI is first of all Zaha Hadid’s building, and its collection is seen through a display that changes. Palazzo Merulana is private: ninety pieces of the Roman School in a building left empty for half a century.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome: 8 artworks to see, from Canova to Pollock
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
MAXXI: 6 things to see, starting with Zaha Hadid’s building
12 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Palazzo Merulana: 6 works to see from the Cerasi collection, in a building back from nothing
12 min read 12 articles
The works not to miss
Monographs: a single work, or a single cycle, told in full. They are scattered between the Vatican Museums, the Galleria Borghese, St Peter’s and the churches of the centre, and they are the cases where knowing what to look for genuinely changes what you see.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Curiosities about the Sistine Chapel: 5 Anecdotes You Do Not Know (updated 2026)
10 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Raphael’s School of Athens: all the secrets of this timeless masterpiece (updated 2026)
9 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
David with the Head of Goliath: the painting Caravaggio used to beg for pardon
9 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Sick Bacchus and Boy with a Basket of Fruit: the two Caravaggios Scipione got through a seizure
9 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Truth Unveiled by Time: the statue Bernini carved for himself
9 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
The two busts of Scipione Borghese: the crack that made Bernini start again
8 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Bernini at the Borghese Gallery: the works nobody looks at
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Bernini’s works in St Peter’s: seven masterpieces in one building
11 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Bernini in Rome: palaces, angels and the last sculpture
11 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Borromini’s perspective gallery at Palazzo Spada: nine metres that look like thirty-five
8 min read Travel guides · Europa
The Borromini you cannot visit: four works you look at from the street
9 min read Travel guides · Europa
Borromini’s works in Rome: what they are, which ones you can visit, and in what order
11 min read 6 articles
Churches
Churches are the free part of Rome, and they are no consolation prize: Santa Maria del Popolo holds Caravaggio, Raphael, Bernini and Carracci in the same building, with no ticket desk. St Peter’s is the exception, because the basilica is open to walk into but climbing the dome is separate. Bernini and Borromini make the list longer on their own: San Carlino, Sant’Ivo and the four free stops of the Borromini itinerary, plus the churches in the centre where Bernini left a statue or a chapel.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
St Peter’s Basilica: what to see, what you pay for and what you do not
14 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome: great masterpieces and a dark past (updated 2026)
9 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane: the church that fits inside a pier of St Peter’s
9 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza: Borromini’s spiral, and why you cannot go in today
8 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Borromini in Rome’s churches: four free stops, from the facade to his tomb
10 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Bernini’s works in Rome’s churches: five stops, all of them free
11 min read 3 articles
Fountains
Three fountains and three periods. The Trevi is the one everyone knows and the only one that needs a strategy about timing. Bernini’s Triton sits in a square you cross without noticing it. The Naiads are in front of Termini station, so they are probably the first thing you see when you arrive.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Trevi Fountain: the history, what you are looking at and the new access rules
12 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Triton Fountain in Rome: 5 things to know and a few anecdotes (updated 2026)
8 min read Monuments & landmarks · Monumenti
The Fountain of the Naiads in Piazza della Repubblica: the secrets of a scandalous masterpiece (updated 2026)
6 min read 3 articles
Buildings that changed job
Three constructions that now do a different job from the one they were built for. Castel Sant’Angelo is Hadrian’s mausoleum turned fortress, papal residence, prison and barracks. The Ara Pacis is an altar reassembled piece by piece and closed inside a glass case, twice within a century. Palazzo Braschi is the last palace a pope had built for a nephew, and it has become the museum of the city.
Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Castel Sant’Angelo: 6 spaces to see, from Hadrian’s ramp to the Passetto
13 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Ara Pacis: 6 reliefs to read, and a monument rebuilt twice
13 min read Museums & masterpieces · Europa
Museo di Roma at Palazzo Braschi: 7 works to see, and piazza Navona without the fountain
13 min read 3 articles
Unexpected Rome
Three places the tours never reach. Through the keyhole of the Priory of Malta, on the Aventine, you see the dome of St Peter’s framed by an avenue of hedges. Coppedè is more a corner than a district and you can walk it in half an hour. Villa Torlonia earns the detour for its little houses.
Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Coppedè district in Rome: a unique place suspended between dream and reality (updated 2026)
7 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
The Priory of Malta on the Aventine: the most romantic spot in Rome (updated 2026)
12 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Villa Torlonia and its enchanted houses: a beautiful, little-known place in Rome (updated 2026)
8 min read 2 articles
Itineraries
Two ways of putting everything else in order. If you have three days, the itinerary is already built and it accounts for the distances, which in Rome are the variable that ruins plans. If you only need to decide which museums, the other guide compares them and tells you which day each one closes.
6 articles
All the Rome guides
This is where everything that does not belong to a single block ends up: the short history of the city, if you want the context before you go, and the places that fit more than one category.
Travel guides · Europa
Bernini’s fountains in Rome: which ones are really his and how to see them in a day
15 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Bee Fountain: Bernini’s smallest fountain and the mistake that cost dear
9 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Fontana della Barcaccia: the sinking boat at the Spanish Steps
11 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Fountain of the Four Rivers: the story, the symbols and the legend that does not hold
13 min read Travel guides · Italy
The history of Rome in brief: from its founding to today (updated 2026)
9 min read Monuments & landmarks · Europa
Altare della Patria: everything you should know about the Vittoriano in Rome (updated 2026)
11 min readExhibitions on now in Rome
All the guides to Rome- closes in 6 days Roma in moneta. Arte e potere nella storia della città eterna Museo Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano
- closes in 6 days Memorie sommerse. I bronzi del Ponte di Valentiniano Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
- closes in 6 days Mircea Cantor. Costellazioni dell’antico Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps
- closes in 6 days Lirismo Indifeso. Percezioni riflesse di Franco Onali Palazzo Merulana
- closes in 13 days Prospettive. Fotografare Palazzo Corsini Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Galleria Corsini
- closes in 13 days Lungo le Strade Blu. Along the Blue Highways Museo di Roma in Trastevere
- closes in 13 days Moto a luogo #2 Museo delle Mura
- closes in 13 days Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme della bellezza Museo dell’Ara Pacis
- closes in 13 days Scuola Italiana. #1 Nicola Pucci Palazzo Merulana
- closes in 20 days Saverio Ungheri. 100 anni di futuro Mattatoio
- closes in 20 days GAM 100. Un secolo di Galleria comunale 1925-2025 Galleria d’Arte Moderna
- closes in 20 days Vermeer at Palazzo Barberini. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini
- closes in 20 days Metamorfosi. Ovidio e le arti Galleria Borghese
- closes in 27 days Andrea Pazienza. Non sempre si muore MAXXI, Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
- closes in 27 days Troia e Roma. Miti, leggende, storie del Mediterraneo antico Parco archeologico del Colosseo
- closes in 27 days Ercolano. L’arte di vivere Museo nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo
- until 25 October 2026 Giuseppe Modica. Il fuoco nel mare Mattatoio
- until 25 October 2026 After. Un percorso di lavoro. Fendi / Karl Lagerfeld 1985 Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
- until 1 November 2026 Angeli. Messaggeri, custodi e viandanti Musei Capitolini
- until 8 November 2026 States of Uncertain Domesticities Museo Carlo Bilotti, Aranciera di Villa Borghese
- until 15 November 2026 AEGYPTUS. Dal Nilo al Mediterraneo Museo dell’Arte Salvata, Aula Ottagona delle Terme di Diocleziano
- until 15 November 2026 Miriam Cahn. Ciò che mi guarda MACRO, Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma
- until 15 November 2026 Moda in luce 1955-1975. Roma fra glamour e innovazione industriale Musei Capitolini, Centrale Montemartini
- until 22 November 2026 Fuochi sul Tevere. Roma attraverso gli occhi di Kanutas Ruseckas Museo nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo, appartamento del Castellano
- until 29 November 2026 Sotto una buona stella Musei di Villa Torlonia, Casina delle Civette
- until 6 December 2026 Fulco Pratesi. Acquerelli Pionieri Museo di Roma in Trastevere
- until 13 December 2026 Diego Rivera e la costruzione dell’arte moderna in Messico nel XX secolo Musei Capitolini, Villa Caffarelli
- until 31 December 2026 Il Ritorno degli Eroi Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia
- until 4 January 2027 Il non finito: fra poetica e tecnica esecutiva Musei Capitolini
- until 14 February 2027 Kandinsky Palazzo Bonaparte
- until 28 March 2027 Andy Warhol. Forever Love La Vaccheria