Best Things to Do in Rome

The list below starts with what everyone comes for and ends with what most people miss. A good Rome day mixes one from the top half with two or three from the bottom.

1. The Colosseum, Forum and Palatine. One ticket covers the three, and together they fill a morning. Our Colosseum guide explains the ticket types, including the arena floor and the underground.
2. The Vatican Museums and St Peter's. The Sistine Chapel is at the end of a very long walk. See our Vatican guide for timing and dress rules.
3. The Pantheon. A Roman temple with an unreinforced concrete dome and an open hole, the oculus, at the top. When it rains, the water falls straight onto the marble floor and drains through small holes. There's now an entry ticket, free on the first Sunday of the month.
4. The Trevi Fountain. Go before 9am or late at night, when the fee doesn't apply and the crowds thin. Throw the coin over your left shoulder with your right hand, as tradition says.
5. Piazza Navona. The long oval shape is the outline of Domitian's stadium. Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers is in the middle. Skip the restaurants on the square itself.
6. The Borghese Gallery. Bernini's marble sculptures, including Apollo and Daphne, where the stone seems to turn into leaves. Timed entry only and a strict limit on numbers, so book well ahead.
7. Trastevere. Ivy, washing lines and small trattorias. Go in the late afternoon, see the gold mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere, and stay for dinner.
8. San Clemente. A 12th-century basilica on top of a 4th-century church, on top of a Roman house and a temple to Mithras. You walk down through all three and hear an underground stream at the bottom.
9. The Aventine keyhole. Look through the keyhole of the Knights of Malta gate on Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta and St Peter's dome sits perfectly framed at the end of a garden path. The orange garden next door has a wide view over the river.
10. The Capitoline Museums. The original bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback, the She-Wolf, and a tunnel with the best view of the Forum in the city.
11. The Appian Way. The old Roman road south of the city, still paved in places with its original stones, lined with tombs and umbrella pines. Rent a bike on a Sunday, when much of it closes to cars.
12. The Spanish Steps. Pretty in April, when the azaleas are out. Sitting on them is banned and fined, so look and move on up to the view from Trinità dei Monti.
13. Testaccio. A working-class district built around an ancient hill made entirely of broken olive-oil jars. Come for the covered market and the food.

Many of these cost nothing: the piazzas, most churches, the keyhole, the Appian Way, and St Peter's Basilica itself.