Sights in Downtown Ancient Rome

What to see around the Forum and Colosseum

Ancient sites

Roman Forum ★★★

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... » more

Palatine Hill ★

A scenic escape from the crowds where you can wander across the grassy floors ancient Imperial palaces and peer down gated passageways of the enormous patrician mansions—called palatium after the hill—built atop the hill where Romulus legendarily founded the 8th century BC Latin village that became Rome... » more

Colosseum ★★★

The world's greatest sports arena, where 50,000 spectators cheered bloody contests between gladiators—and between man and beasts—that could last 100 days or more and involve the slaughter of literally thousands of animals and men. Yes, ancient Rome was a cheery place... » more

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, Forum of Augustus, Forum of Caesar, and Market of Trajan now installed with a Museum of the Imperial Forums... » more

Trajan's Market ★★

The world’s first multilevel shopping mall was built by the Emperor Trajan in the AD 2nd century. It's the only bit of the Imperial Fori consistently open to the public, offering a glimpse into real daily life in Ancient Rome. You can wander a brief but evocative section of the city's most intact ancient streets, and the curving, four-story grand bazaar halls lined by former market stalls with marble porticos and barrel-vaulted ceilings... » more

Trajan's Forum

The Forum of Trajan is marked by the exclamation point of a triumphal column—and, as part of the Fori Imperiali Musuem in the adjacaent Markets of Trajan, is the only Imperial Forum that is consistently open to the public... » more

Forum of Augustus

The stairs and column stumps in the center once belonged to the 2nd-century BC Temple of Mars Ultor. When it’s open, you can follow a catwalk running along the forum’s edge to get a better view... » more

Forum of Caesar

The earliest of the Imperial Fori, the Forum of Caesar (i.e.: Julius), is the only one on the west side of Via dei Fori Imperiali. Those three standing Corinthian columns belonged to his self-serving Temple to Venus Genetrix, a goddess from whom Caesar claimed direct descendance through Rome's legendary founder, Aeneas... » more

Nighttime Forum views ★★

Walk up Michelangelo's sloping carriage staircase to the top of the Capitoline Hill, around the Palazzo Senatorio, to a hidden, magnificent panorama across the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, with the Colosseum peeking out in the background... » more

Baths of Caracalla ★

The largest surviving ruins of an ancient baths complex in Rome is a crumbling complex of brick walls and broken archways sprawling over 33 acres that could once accommodate 1,600 bathers. It is also a spectacular setting for summertime opera and concert performances... » more

Domus Aurea ★

Nero built his "Golden House" on 200 acres of prime real estate he seized after the Great Fire of AD 64. It was one the most sumptuous palaces in history, slathered in frescoes and stuccoes, with rotating banquet tables over which would drift showers of flower petals, and entire rooms laminated in gold leaf (hence the nickname). It was a party palace par excel lance for an emperor who would go down in history as one of the most hated leaders of all time... » more

The Arch of Constantine

Standing between the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, the Arch of Constantine is one of the largest of Rome's ancient triumphal arches, celebrating Emperor Constantine the Great's AD 312 victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge—which marked a seismic shift in European history, when Rome (and, eventually, Europe) started converting from pagan to Christian... » more

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)... » more

The Foro Boario

The forgotten forum, a pair of teensy, utterly ancient temples wedged between the back side of the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber River, right across from the Mouth of Truth, in what was until modern times a cow pasture... » more

Tiber Island

Rome's only island rides the water of the Tevere like a boat laden with the echoes of ancient myths and beliefs... » more

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... » more

Museums & Monuments

Capitoline Museums ★★

Stuffed with ancient statues and mosaics and Renaissance and baroque masterpieces by Caravaggio, Rubens, Titian, Bernini, and Tintoretto, the twinned Capitoline Museums are home to such Rome icons as the archetype statue of the she-wolf suckling the twins Romulus and Remus, Lo Spinario (boy picking thorn out of foot), the Dying Gaul, and those gargantuan marble head, hands, and feet you see on all the postcards (usually with a cat posing on them)... » more

Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill) ★

Walk up Michelangelo's sloping carriage staircase, past the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, to the top of the Capitoline Hill (seat of the Roman government and whence we get the word "capitol"). Skirt around the (replica) 2nd century equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, between the two palazzi housing the Capitoline Museums (fabulous ancient art plus baroque paintings by Caravaggio, Titian, and Rubens), and around the back of Palazzo Senatorio for a magnificent panorama across the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, with the Colosseum in the background... » more

Museo Palatino

Atop the Palatine Hill, this is an excellent collection of Roman sculpture and finds from the ongoing digs in the surrounding Palatine palazzi... » more

The Vittoriano

The Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II—dedicated to Italy's first king, Victor Emmanuel II, and usually called "The Wedding Cake" or "The Giant Typewriter"—is the undisputedly ugliest and most pretentious building in all of Rome. However, it now has one saving grace: You can now climb it for a magnificent panorama over the heart of ancient Rome... » more

Churches

San Clemente ★★

This early medieval church's mosaics, marbles, and Masolino frescoes would be worth a visit in of themselves. But the real show here is that you can head downstairs to see Rome's layer effect at work, exploring church stacked upon church stacked upon a pagan temple to Mithras surrounded by ancient Roman streets and houses deep underground... » more

Santa Maria in Cosmedin ★

It's not the glittering mosaics, 12th-century bell tower, or cosmatesque pavement inside that draw the crowds to this medieval church; it's the ancient Roman sewer-covering inside the portico, a grotesque face with a gaping mouth called the "Mouth of Truth," (see below)... » more

The Mouth of Truth ★

An ancient Roman sewer-covering carved into a grotesque face with a gaping mouth into which Gregory Peck-wannabes trust their hands and brazenly tell lies while Audrey Hepburn types shriek with horror as the men pretend that the mouth chomps off their hands for fibbing. Rent Roman Holiday and you'll see what I mean... » more

Tips & links

Ancient Rome tours

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How long does Rome take?

Planning your day: Rome wasn't built in a day, and you'd be hard-pressed to see it in that brief a time as well. Still, you can cram a lot into just a day or three.

To help you get the most out of your limited time in the Eternal City, here are some perfect itineraries, whether you have one, two, three, or four days to spend in Rome.

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