Rome

Colosseum

Colosseo

Celio / Forum

The largest amphitheatre of the ancient world, completed in AD 80, held fifty thousand spectators. Your ticket also covers the Roman Forum and the Palatine, so set aside half a day for the whole site. The underground level and the reconstructed arena floor are booked separately and sell out first.

Tip: Tickets are timed and sold almost exclusively online at parcocolosseo.it — turning up at the box office rarely works any more.

Admission:

from €18, valid 24 h including Forum and Palatine

Time needed:

3–4 h with the Forum

Roman Forum and Palatine Hill

Foro Romano e Palatino

Centro Storico

The political heart of the republic and the empire: temples, basilicas, triumphal arches, and on the Palatine the emperors' palaces overlooking the Circus Maximus. Without a plan or a guide it reads as a field of rubble; with one it is among the most powerful things in Rome.

Tip: Enter from Via di San Gregorio on the Palatine side — the queue there is usually far shorter than at the Arch of Titus.

Admission:

included in the Colosseum ticket

Time needed:

2–3 h

Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel

Musei Vaticani

Vatican

Seven kilometres of galleries holding five centuries of papal collecting: the Raphael Rooms, the Egyptian collection, the Gallery of Maps and, at the end, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The route is one-way and in high season extremely dense.

Tip: Book the first 8:00 entry; you will reach the Sistine Chapel before the rest of the museum fills up behind you.

Admission:

from €20 online plus booking fee

Time needed:

3 h

St Peter's Basilica

Basilica di San Pietro

Vatican

The largest church in Christendom, with Michelangelo's dome and his Pietà immediately on the right as you enter. The basilica itself is free; you pay only to climb the dome, which gives the best view over Rome and into the Vatican gardens.

Tip: The dress code is enforced — shoulders and knees covered, or security turns you away before the scanners.

Admission:

basilica free, dome from €10

Time needed:

1–2 h

Pantheon

Centro Storico

The best preserved building of ancient Rome has been in continuous use for almost two thousand years. Its concrete dome, open to the sky at the centre, still holds the record for the largest unreinforced dome ever built, and it is the burial place of Raphael and of Italy's kings.

Tip: Come at opening time or in the rain — water falling through the oculus onto the marble floor is the best thing you will see here.

Admission:

€5, free on Sunday mornings

Time needed:

30–45 min

Trevi Fountain

Fontana di Trevi

Trevi

A baroque fountain filling the entire flank of Palazzo Poli, it is the terminus of the Aqua Virgo aqueduct which has carried water here since 19 BC. Tossing a coin over your left shoulder supposedly guarantees a return to Rome; the city collects over a million euros a year from it.

Tip: At six in the morning it is empty and the floodlights are still on — the only hour you will photograph it without a crowd.

Admission:

free

Time needed:

20 min

Borghese Gallery

Galleria Borghese

Villa Borghese

Rome's finest sculpture collection in an intimate villa: Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Proserpina and David, plus six Caravaggios. Entry is in two-hour slots with a capped number of visitors, so you can actually stand back and look.

Tip: Booking is compulsory and slots fill up three weeks out — buy the ticket before you buy the flight.

Admission:

from €13 plus compulsory reservation

Time needed:

2 h (fixed slot)

Castel Sant'Angelo

Borgo

Built as Hadrian's mausoleum, later a papal fortress and prison, now a museum with a 2nd-century spiral ramp and a terrace above the Tiber. The upper terrace gives one of the best views of St Peter's dome, particularly at sunset.

Tip: The covered Passetto corridor to the Vatican, used by popes fleeing danger, opens only for special tours — check before you go.

Admission:

from €16

Time needed:

1.5 h

Piazza Navona

Centro Storico

A baroque square built over the stadium of Domitian, which is why it keeps the elongated shape of the ancient racing track. Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers stands at the centre, with cafés, painters and, in December, a Christmas market around the edges.

Tip: Have your coffee a block away — on the square itself you pay double for the view.

Admission:

free

Time needed:

30 min