Top Sights in Rome

The top museums, churches, monuments, and experiences of Rome, Italy

Sights By Category
• Top Sights
• Museums
• Ancient sites / ruins
• Churches
• Reid's list
• Free sights
• Michelangelo's Rome
• Bernini's Rome
• Caravaggio's Rome The Vatican Museums - Rome's most magnificent collection of museums includes—among many, many other things—Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Raphael Rooms, exquisite ancient Roman sculptures, and a painting gallery stuffed with works by Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto, Caravaggio, Raphael, Fra' Angelico, and many more....» Full Story

St. Peter's Cathedral - The capital of Christendom and most magnificent basilica on Earth is a late-Renaissance/early-baroque masterpiece of architecture and decoration.... » Full Story

The Colosseum - The world's greatest sports arena, where 50,000 of the masses could be amused at a time, and the contests between men and man against beasts could last 100 days and involve the slaughter of literally thousands of animals and gladiators..... » Full Story

The Roman Forum and Imperial Fori - Lines of chipped columns, crumbling triumphal arches, broken temple porticoes, the curve of abandoned marketplaces, armless statues patinaed with age—you can wander at will through the ghost city of an ancient Rome that, 2,000 years ago, ruled over the entire known world.... » Full Story

The Pantheon - 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... . » Full Story

The Spanish Steps - A graceful arc of stairs—set off by azaleas in spring and always overflowing with chattering Romans and tourists—is tied in an off-center double-bow to an elegant hillside at the very eart of Rome's trendiest shopping district.... » Full Story

The Trevi Fountain - The world's most famous wishing well is a riot of sculpture and favorite late-night gathering place in Rome.... » Full Story

Piazza Navona - Sit at a café table on the oblong Piazza Navona beside a splashing fountain festooned with Bernini sculptures and just watch the carnival of Roman life spin past you... » Full Story

The Mouth of Truth - An ancient Roman sewer-covering carved into a grotesque face with a gaping mouth that legend holds will bite off the fingers of anyone who dares stick in his hand and tell a lie.... » Full Story

The Catacombs of the Ancient Appian Way - Miles of low, dimly lit tunnels carved into the soft tufa honeycomb the earth beneath the Via Appia Antica, each tunnel pigeonholed with tens of thousands of niches where early Christians buried their dead and left some of the world's first Christian art.... » Full Story

Castel Sant'Angelo - The pope's personal fortress is a giant cylinder of a castle glowering above the Tiber and hiding at its core the tomb of Hadrian and a dozen other ancient Roman emperors.... » Full Story

An audience with the Pope - Unlike the Middle Ages, when you had to have excellent connections to see the Bishop of Rome (that's the Pope's real title), these days papal audiences are pretty easy to come by—so long as you're willing to share the moment with several thousand other audience members.... » Full Story