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Rome: Free Sights
Sights and monuments in Rome, Italy, that are always admission-free
www.turismoroma.it
City museums:
www.museiincomuneroma.it
Ancient sites:
archeoroma.beniculturali.it
ReidsItaly.com Rome Map
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Rome Tours & Activities
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... 
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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 heart of Rome's trendiest shopping district....
Imperial Fori - The grandeur of Imperial Rome, laid out in a series of public spaces, markets, and triumphal columns by successive emperors, you can admire with a quick stroll or bike ride down Via dei Fori Imperiali: The Forum of Trajan, the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Nerva....
Piazza Navona - Sit at a café table on the oblong Piazza Navona square—built atop the oval of an ancient Roman stadium, lined by palaces and churches, and centered on Bernini's fantastic Four Rivers fountain—and just watch the carnival of Roman life spin past you...
Rome for Free
Always Free
Sometimes Free
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The Trevi Fountain - The world's most famous wishing well is a riot of sculpture and favorite late-night gathering place in Rome....
Largo Argentina - A few steps from one of Rome's main city bus stops lies a trio of ancient temples crawling with stray cats and overflowing with weeds, and the crumbling set of steps upon which Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March....
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....
Campo de' Fiori - Rome's morning flower and produce market fills a piazza at the very heart of the centro storico; by the lunch hour it is ringed with traditional trattorie; by evening the pubs open and the square transforms yet again into a major hub of Rome's nightlife scene....
Piazza del Popolo - This huge oval space, centered on an fountain sprouting ancient Egyptian obelisk of Ramses II, between the banks of the Tiber River and the terraced 19th-century Pincio Gardens leading up to Villa Borghese Park once formed part of the gardens belonging to the family of the crazed and despised Emperor Nero. After complaints that Nero's ghost haunted the pine grove on the site, the church razed it and built the amazing church of Santa Maria del Popolo, crammed with art and architectural works by Caravaggio, Bernini, Raphael, and Pinturicchio... 
NO LONGER FREE
The Roman Forum - I include this on this list even though they charge €11 to get in now because (a) it's a major site that (b) until 2008 actually was admission-free. It had been free for nearly a decade, and some of your guidebooks or other travel materials might still say this; I just wanted to give you the heads-up.
Not that a visit isn't still worth it. The famous Forum's lines of chipped columns, crumbling triumphal arches, broken temple porticoes, the curve of abandoned marketplaces, armless statues patinaed with age allowing you to wander through the ghost city of an ancient Rome that, 2,000 years ago, ruled the entire known world....
Teatro di Marcello - This early blueprint for the Colosseum survives even though medieval builders grafted a series of apartment buildings on top of it (don't tell me the Romans don't know how to recycle)....
Circus Maximus - Slung into the Murcia Valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills, the elongated grassy jogging oval known as the Circo Massimo was once the largest stadium in all of Rome, a 2,000-foot-long track where the empire threw its most extravagant chariot races to entertain crowds of up to 385,000 screaming spectators...
Teatro di Pompeo - The remains of an ancient Roman amphitheater in the basement of a contemporary Roman restaurant (killer pasta all'amatriciana, too)....
The Vittoriano - The Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (Italy's first king, Victor Emmanuel II)—the undisputedly ugliest and most pretentious building in all of Rome—now has one saving grace: you can now climb it for a magnificent panorama over the heart of ancient Rome....
Pasquino - Rome's favorite public pundit and editorial cartoonist has been on the job for centuries now, dispensing his wit, wisdom, and barely concealed rage at the problems facing society from the corner of a palazzo just off Piazza Navona....
Column of Marcus Aurelius - The emperor's exploits and most famous victories spelled out comic-strip fashion in a spiral up this giant marble pillar along the Via del Corso....
The Foro Boario - The forgotten forum, a pair of teensy, utterly ancient temples slung between the back side of the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber River, across from the Mouth of Truth, in what was until modern time a cow pasture....
The Knights of Malta Keyhole - A peek-a-boo view of St. Peter's from the top of the Aventine Hill—and the entrance to the private fiefdom of an order of knights that has survived since the Crusades....
Ponte Sant'Angelo - The prettiest bridge across the Tiber River is strung with statues of angles designed by Bernini and leads right to the Pope's private castle, Castel Sant'Angelo....
Palazzo Zuccari - The artists who once owned this palazzo near the top of the Spanish Steps laid out an unusual unwelcome mat in the form of turning the door and window frames into the gaping maws of monstrous faces ....
Museo delle Anime del Purgatorio (Museum of Souls in Purgatory) - Proof that not everyone makes it to the afterlife on the first try....
Related pages
- Other free sights in Rome (churches, parks, markets, experiences, and sometimes even the Vatican Museums)
- More sights by category: Museums, Ancient sites / ruins, piazze & fountains, churches, Reid's list
- Top sights in Rome
- Free food at Roman bars
- Discounts on Rome sightseeing
- Sights in Rome
- Rome homepage
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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.
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Copyright © 2008–2012 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett
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