Rome, the eternal and the new

Grandeur and the modern spirit

Rome rewards the early riser. At eight in the morning the Colosseum is a curve of travertine against a pale sky, the Forum is quiet below the Palatine, and the first slot of the day at colosseo.it puts you inside before the city has finished its first coffee. By the afternoon you can be in Monti, Rome’s oldest rione, among workshops, wine bars and the small Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, or out on the Via Ostiense, where the Centrale Montemartini shows ancient marble heads in front of the turbines of a former power station.

The city’s newest addresses keep up the conversation between old and new. The Metro C stations at the Colosseum, opened in December 2025, display finds from their own excavations; a generation of palazzo hotels, from Six Senses on the Piazza di San Marcello to Orient Express La Minerva behind the Pantheon, has made the historic centre a place to stay again, not just to pass through.

Traditions and seasonal style

Rome dresses for the occasion. For St Peter’s and the other churches, shoulders and knees are covered: a light scarf in your bag solves it in summer. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons for walking; July and August are hot, and around Ferragosto, on 15 August, many family-run shops and trattorias close for their holidays. Winter is mild and bright, the season of artichokes and the Christmas market on the Piazza Navona.

An evening at the opera is the occasion to dress up: the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in its house near the Piazza della Repubblica in winter, and among the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in summer.

At the table: the bar, the trattoria and the new kitchens

The day starts at the counter of a bar: a cappuccino and a cornetto, standing, at Tazza d’Oro beside the Pantheon or Sciascia Caffè 1919 in Prati. Lunch belongs to the trattoria and the four Roman pastas, cacio e pepe, gricia, amatriciana and carbonara, at Armando al Pantheon, Roscioli or Taverna Trilussa.

The new Rome cooks at the top of its grand hotels and in small dining rooms around the centre. La Pergola at the Rome Cavalieri holds Three MICHELIN Stars in the 2026 guide; Acquolina, Il Pagliaccio and Enoteca La Torre hold Two, and sixteen more tables hold One, from Imàgo above the Spanish Steps to Glass Hostaria and Zia in Trastevere. The wine is from the Castelli Romani, Frascati first.

Roman Cuisine →   The best restaurants in Rome →

Hills, lakes and the sea within reach

Rome is a green city: the Villa Borghese and the Pincio, the pines of Villa Doria Pamphilj, the Orange Garden on the Aventine. Beyond the walls, the Via Appia Antica runs south between tombs and umbrella pines, listed by UNESCO in 2024 and best explored by bike.

A regional train takes you up into the Alban Hills, to Frascati and to Castel Gandolfo above the crater of Lake Albano, or east to Tivoli and the fountains of the Villa d’Este. Ostia Antica, ancient Rome’s port, is half an hour away on the line from Porta San Paolo.

North-west of the city, the volcanic Lake Bracciano lies within the Parco Naturale Regionale di Bracciano–Martignano (parcobracciano.it); to the south, the Parco Nazionale del Circeo (parcocirceo.it) protects the dunes of the coast at Sabaudia and the headland of Monte Circeo.

The Castelli Romani →   Tivoli →   Ostia Antica →

After dark, and what’s new

Rome goes out late and slowly. Aperitivo is a ritual in Trastevere, at Freni e Frizioni near the Ponte Sisto; cocktails are mixed behind an unmarked door at Jerry Thomas Speakeasy off the Via Giulia, and under the neon of Drink Kong in Monti. In fine weather, take a drink in the garden of the Hotel de Russie, then walk to the Trevi Fountain when the day’s crowds have gone: since February 2026, the basin is reached on a €2 ticket until 22:00.

Beyond the centre

Some of the most rewarding Rome lies outside the usual circuit. Ostiense has the Centrale Montemartini, the basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura and Eataly in the old air terminal; further south, EUR is a planned quarter of the 1930s and 1940s, its Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana a square of white arches. Testaccio has its covered market and the cooking of the quinto quarto; the Aventine, the keyhole of the Knights of Malta.

Ostiense & EUR →   Testaccio & the Aventine →

The rail frontier: south to Naples

Roma Termini is the hub of Italy’s high-speed railways. Trenitalia’s Frecciarossa and Italo run south to Napoli Centrale, the gateway to Pompeii, Herculaneum and the National Archaeological Museum, and north to Florence, Bologna, Milan and Venice. Book on trenitalia.com or italotreno.com, and check the timetable before you travel.

For slow travel, La Dolce Vita Orient Express runs journeys across Italy and one-way trips between Rome and Istanbul, with dining curated, in its own words, by Heinz Beck of La Pergola (orient-express.com).

Rome by rail →   Naples & Pompeii →   ULTIMATE Rail Journeys →

The films that captured Rome

Rome has been the cinema’s favourite stage since Cinecittà opened its studios on the Via Tuscolana. Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960) gave the world Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain; William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953) sent Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck through the city on a Vespa; and Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) followed Toni Servillo through the terraces and palazzi of a Roman summer. See our page Rome on film for the official trailers.

Rome on film →

Questions and answers