Reid's List: Rome

My favorite experiences and lesser-known sights in Rome, Italy

Tourist info:
www.turismoroma.it
City museums:
www.museiincomuneroma.it
Ancient sites:
archeoroma.beniculturali.it

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★★ Descending through 20 centuries of history at San Clemente - This early medieval church's mosaics, marbles, and Masolino frescoes would be worth a visit in of themselves. But the real show here is that you can head downstairs to see Rome's layer effect at work, exploring church stacked upon church stacked upon a pagan temple to Mithras surrounded by ancient Roman streets and houses deep underground... » more

★★ Paying homage to Bernini and Caravaggio at the Galleria Borghese - Rome's Galleria Borghese in the middle of the city's best park is a frescoed 1613 villa packed to the gills with amazing works by Bernini, Caravaggio, and Raphael—not to mention ancient statuary—and ranks as one of my top three small museums in the world. Warning: Entry is on timed tickets which you must book ahead of time (and it can sell out days in advance)... » more

★★ Gazing over the Forum at night from the Campidoglio - Walk up Michelangelo's sloping carriage staircase to the top of the Capitoline Hill then around to the right of the central Palazzo Senatorio. At its back corner you'll find a hidden, magnificent panorama across the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, with the Colosseum peeking out in the background. The same view is there in the daytime, but it takes on a magic aura when spotlit at night... » more

★★ Tracing art history at Santa Maria del Popolo - This little gem of a church at the very northern edge of the city center is one of my favorite in all of Rome. It acts as a primer of Italy's Renaissance and early baroque movements, with works by Caravaggio, Bernini, Raphael, Pinturicchio, Sansovino, Bramante, Guillaume de Marcillat, Annibale Carracci, and more... » more

★★ Joining the evening passeggiata - Leave it to the Italians to turn their pre-dinner stroll into the premier social event of each day. During the evening passeggiata ("little walk") between 5 and 7pm, half the city turns out in their best clothes to see and be seen—but mostly to be seen fare la bella figura, ("cutting a beautiful figure")... » more

★ Counting the cats of Largo Argentina - A few steps from one of Rome's main city bus stops lie a trio of ancient temples crawling with stray cats and overflowing with weeds. Beside them, utterly unheralded by informative plaque (or guidebook entry) are the crumbling set of steps upon which Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March. Et tu, Brute?.... » more

★ Glimpsing some hidden history at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere - You'd never know from the bland baroque interior of this convent church that, by slipping a modest bribe to the nuns, you can get inside the cloistered section to see one of Rome's last remaining medieval masterpieces of fresco by Pietro Cavallini... » more

★ Enjoying a nighttime stroll up the Gianicolo (following dinner in Trastevere) - The Janiculum is not, technically, one of the famous "seven hills of Rome," but it's still my favorite—stretched between Trastevere and the Vatican Borgo across the Tiber River from the ancient center, and offering a stunning panorama of the city... » more

★ Getting my creeps on in the Capuchin Crypt - No one comes here for the church above, they come of the eerie Capuchin Crypt underneath, where the walls of four chapels are mosaicked with the bones of dead monks. At the end is a memento mori message: "What you are, we used to be. What we are, you will become." Creepy... » more

★ Touring the Farnesina - Baldassare Peruzzi built this modestly sized but sumptuously decorated villa for banking mogul Agostino Chigi in 1508–11. Chigi had particularly good taste in artists and hired the top Renaissance names in the city to decorate his new villa. Raphael provided a carnival of mythological scenes in the dining room and loggia; Sodoma gave the bedroom some racy frescoes of Alexander the Great's wedding night; and Peruzzi virtually erased the walls of the upstairs great hall, creating a trompe-l'oeil "open" terrace with "views" of the surrounding hillsides.... » more

★ Visiting the Centrale Montemartini - The Acea Art Center is a bona fide deus ex macchina experience. They've prettied up the old Montemartini power plant to house more than 400 gorgeous ancient Roman sculptures from the Capitoline Museums collections that haven't been seen by the public in decades. These are evocatively displayed against a backdrop of the power plant's inky black iron machinery, much of it so massive and muscularly mechanical that it looks more like a metaphor of early industry than actual working devices, like it came from a Fritz Lang movie set... » more

Biking the Via Appia Antica - On Sundays, the Ancient Appian Way —the first of Rome's great consular roads, built in the 4th century BC—is closed to traffic... except for bicyclists. You can bump along the ancient cobblestones past the famous catacombs, Romantically crumbling sections of Roman aqueduct, and ancient tombs like that of Cecilia Metella. One you pass the Appia Antica Caffé (snack stop), there's nothing but countryside and ancient monuments all the way to the Castelli Romani hill towns, 19 km (12 miles) away...

Indulging in a gelato taste test - To call gelato "ice cream" is insulting to gelato and unfair to ice cream. Gelato is much richer, smoother, and more flavorful than ice cream. Which gelateria has the best gelato in Rome? That's a question fiercely debated—and I would hate to deprive you of the chance to find out for yourself. Make sure you try at least San Crispino and Giolitti, but to make a truly scientific experiment, I'm afraid you'll have to stop and get gelato at every shop you pass. Poor you.... » more

Making a Caravaggio pilgrimage to various churches and museums - Michelangelo "Caravaggio" Meresi was probably the most influential painter after Michelangelo on Italian painting style. Caravaggio pioneered the chiaroscuro style of painting, contrasting dark, even black areas of deep shadow with planes of color light by strong light and highlights. He painted in manner that was at once intensely realistic and naturalistic, yet also exaggerated and emphasized—sort of a heightened, hyper-realism. This style would greatly inform the works of Bernini, Ribera, Rubens, Rembrandt, and a host of others down the ages. His masterpieces are spread throughout Rome's churches, palaces, and museums... » more

Hitting all four branches of the Museo Nazionale Romano - Rome's Museo Nazionale Romano (National Roman Museum) is the world's single greatest collection of Ancient Roman art spread across four amazing spaces: Palazzo Altemps, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, the Baths of Diocletian, and the Aula Ottagona... » more

Getting a peek at Sant'Ivo's curly cue dome - Borromini's masterpiece of a baroque church—a complex interplay of concave and convex lines topped by a swirly elliptical lantern that looks for all the world like soft-serve ice cream—is hidden away in the courtyard of a nondescript university building, making your "discovery" of it that much more surprising and special... » more

Being inside the Pantheon when it rains - The only ancient Roman temple to survive the millennia intact is also one of the most amazing architectural spaces in Rome, an expansive cylinder swaddled in precious marbles, topped by a vast concrete hemisphere, and pierced by a wide shaft of sunlight from the oculus at the center. When it rains, the drops fall lightly through this hole to dance on the marble floor and slip through an ancient drain in the center. During the rare Roman snowfall, the effect is even more magical... » more

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This material was last updated May 2012. All information was accurate at the time.

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Reid's List: Rome

My favorite experiences and lesser-known sights in Rome, Italy

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