Rome guide
The unmissable sights a short walk from Cherì Navona, with history, curiosities and up-to-date directions. Opening times and tickets are always on each site's official website.
Today
9° / 19°Partly cloudy
No rain expected · Wind up to 14 km/h · Humidity 73%
Friday 6
10° / 14°Heavy rain
Rain expected: 31.8 mm · Wind up to 16 km/h · Humidity 90%
Saturday 7
12° / 17°Cloudy
Rain expected: 1.9 mm · Wind up to 15 km/h · Humidity 87%
Sunday 8
11° / 16°Cloudy
Rain expected: 0.1 mm · Wind up to 8 km/h · Humidity 86%
Weather data MET Norway (CC BY 4.0) · Official weather alerts
about 1 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1.3 hours · Ticket required
A Renaissance palazzo bought in 1568 by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps, it is one of the sites of the National Roman Museum. It holds ancient sculptures from the great noble collections — including the Ludovisi Throne and the dramatic Galatian Suicide — in frescoed halls and quiet courtyards.
Did you know: It is less than five minutes' walk from the house and often uncrowded — a hidden treasure next to Piazza Navona, perfect on rainy days too.
✦ The legend: In 1586 Roberto Altemps, the young duke who owned this palace, was beheaded by order of Pope Sixtus V on a charge of adultery; his family begged in vain for a pardon. Ever since, it is said that on certain nights one can hear, in these rooms, the step of a man walking back and forth and finding no peace.
about 3 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1 hours · Ticket required
The cloister of Santa Maria della Pace is Donato Bramante's first work in Rome, built between 1500 and 1504 — shortly afterwards the same architect would design the new St Peter's Basilica. Today it hosts art exhibitions and a café on the upper floor, floating above the cloister.
Did you know: From the cloister's upper floor, a window looks into the church onto Raphael's frescoed Sibyls — an unusual view of a masterpiece.
✦ The legend: Here tradition has left no legend, but a true episode worth as much as one. From the café on the upper floor you look straight into the church of Santa Maria della Pace and see, from very close, the Sibyls Raphael painted in 1514: a vantage point nobody planned, created by chance when the cloister was restored.
about 4 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
A few steps from the house, this straight, quiet street follows an ancient Roman road. It is named after the “coronari”, the rosary sellers who served pilgrims heading to St Peter's. Today it is Rome's antiques street, lined with Renaissance palazzi and little squares.
Did you know: Look up at the street corners and you will spot small shrines with sacred images: they were once also the only night-time lighting in the streets.
✦ The legend: Palazzo de Cupis is the setting for the story of Costanza, who had — everyone said — the most beautiful hands in Rome, so much so that a sculptor made a cast of them. One day she cut a finger, the wound became infected, and she died of it. Since then, so the legend goes, on certain nights a very white hand appears at the walled-up window overlooking the street.
about 4 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
The French national church in Rome, consecrated in 1589. In the last chapel on the left, the Contarelli Chapel, hang three canvases by Caravaggio devoted to St Matthew — the Calling, the Inspiration and the Martyrdom — painted between 1599 and 1602. They were his first public works, the ones that made him famous in a single season.
Did you know: Entry is free, and it is an eight-minute walk from the flat: three Caravaggios with no ticket and no queue. There is a coin-operated light in the chapel — worth having a coin in your pocket, because in the dark the paintings cannot be read.
✦ The legend: Of the first Inspiration of St Matthew it is said that it was rejected because the evangelist looked like a peasant with dirty feet and the angel was guiding his hand as though he could not write. Caravaggio painted a more decorous version, and that is the one you see today. The first ended up in Berlin and was destroyed in 1945: only black-and-white photographs of it remain.
about 7 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 10 min · Free entry
Just behind Piazza Navona stands a weather-worn marble torso, a fragment of an ancient sculpture placed here in 1501. Ever since, Romans have stuck anonymous, biting verses against the powerful on it at night — the “pasquinades”. It is the most famous of Rome's talking statues.
Did you know: There were six talking statues and they “talked” to each other: Pasquino often answered Marforio, now in the Capitoline Museums. The word “pasquinade” entered the English language too.
✦ The legend: The mutilated statue at the corner of the square is the oldest of Rome's “talking statues”. The name is said to come from Pasquino, a local craftsman — a tailor or a barber, depending on the version — known for his sharp tongue against the powerful. Since the sixteenth century Romans have pinned anonymous notes to the pedestal by night: the pasquinate. Anyone passing today still finds some.
about 8 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 40 min · Ticket required
Rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD (the inscription on the façade honours Marcus Agrippa, who built the first temple), it has a dome about 43 metres across — still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Since 609 it has been a church, Santa Maria ad Martyres: Raphael and the kings Victor Emmanuel II and Umberto I are buried here.
Did you know: The oculus at the top of the dome is open: when it rains, water falls in and drains through small holes in the floor. On Pentecost, by tradition, rose petals are dropped through the oculus.
✦ The legend: A medieval legend holds that the oculus is the work not of architects but of the devil: forced to flee when the pagan building was consecrated as a church, he is said to have burst through the dome from within. Another tradition tells that the Romans filled the building with earth mixed with coins in order to build the vault, and that the crowd then carried it away basket by basket, hunting for the gold.
about 10 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1.5 hours · Ticket required
Built as the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian (completed in 139 AD), it became a fortress, a prison and a papal refuge, linked to the Vatican by the Passetto di Borgo: in 1527, during the Sack of Rome, Pope Clement VII escaped here. Today it is a national museum with a superb terrace over the Tiber and St Peter's.
Did you know: The name comes from a legend: in 590, during a plague, Pope Gregory the Great is said to have seen the Archangel Michael sheathing his sword above the mausoleum. The bronze angel on top is by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt (1753); the angels on the bridge were designed by Bernini. The last act of Puccini's “Tosca” is set here.
✦ The legend: The name comes from a vision. In 590, during a plague, Pope Gregory the Great was leading a procession along the Tiber when, so the story goes, he saw the Archangel Michael on top of the mausoleum sheathing his sword: a sign that the scourge was over. The plague ceased, and from then on Hadrian's tomb has been called Castel Sant'Angelo. The bronze angel on the summit is there for that reason.
about 11 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
Once a flowering meadow, later a place of markets and public executions. The statue of Giordano Bruno (1889) at its centre commemorates the philosopher burned at the stake here in 1600. In the morning the square hosts a market of fruit, flowers and spices; in the evening it fills with bars and restaurants.
Did you know: Giordano Bruno's statue deliberately faces the Vatican: it was erected after Italian unification as a symbol of freedom of thought.
✦ The legend: One tradition traces the name to Flora, the woman Pompey loved, whose theatre stood nearby: the meadow that stretched here would have been “Flora's field”. Historians favour a plainer explanation — it really was a flowering field, not yet built on — but the romantic name is the one that has stayed in the guidebooks and in people's speech.
about 13 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 20 min · Free, some areas ticketed
Four Republican-era temples emerge in the square, uncovered between 1926 and 1929. Beside them stood the Curia of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March, 44 BC. The site can be seen from the street; visits inside are run by Rome's Sovrintendenza.
Did you know: A colony of cats lives among the ruins, cared for by volunteers: it is one of Rome's best-known cat sanctuaries.
✦ The legend: The medieval tower closing the site is called Torre del Papito, “the little pope's tower”: tradition links it to Anacletus II, elected in 1130 against another pope and never recognised, whom the people mockingly called by that name. Rome's cats have lived in the archaeological area for decades, and for a century someone has gone down every day to feed them.
about 15 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 20 min · Free, some areas ticketed
Designed by Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762, it is the showpiece end of the Aqua Virgo aqueduct, built by Agrippa in 19 BC and still working. The central figure is Oceanus, on a chariot drawn by sea horses. Fellini made it world-famous in 1960 with “La Dolce Vita”.
Did you know: The coins thrown into the fountain are collected regularly and given to charity. Sitting on the edge or wading in is forbidden: check Rome's official tourism website for current access rules.
✦ The legend: The water that flows here is called Acqua Vergine because of a very old legend: in 19 BC some thirsty Roman soldiers were led to the spring by a young girl, who then vanished. The modern custom is better known: a coin thrown with the right hand over the left shoulder, with your back to the fountain, promises a return to Rome.
about 16 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
The Spanish Steps (1723–1725) climb from the square to the French church of Trinità dei Monti. At the foot lies the Barcaccia fountain by Pietro Bernini, with help from his son Gian Lorenzo. The poet John Keats died in 1821 in the house to the right of the steps, now a museum.
Did you know: Sitting or eating on the steps is not allowed: Rome's city regulations forbid it to protect the monument.
✦ The legend: The boat-shaped fountain at the foot of the steps, the Barcaccia, owes its shape — so the story goes — to the great Tiber flood of 1598: when the waters withdrew, a boat was said to have been left stranded on this very spot, and Pietro Bernini turned it into a fountain. The technical explanation is less poetic: the water arrived at low pressure, and a sunken basin was the only way to make it play.
about 19 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
For centuries this was Rome's front door for anyone arriving from the north: here the journey of pilgrims and Grand Tour travellers ended. At the centre stands the Flaminian obelisk, brought from Heliopolis by Augustus in 10 BC and moved here in 1589. The present oval shape is Giuseppe Valadier's, from the early nineteenth century; on one side the twin churches, on the other the climb to the Pincio.
Did you know: The two churches flanking via del Corso look identical but are not: the plots had different widths, so to make them appear the same one has an oval dome and the other a circular one. From the Pincio terrace just above, you get one of the finest views over the city at sunset.
✦ The legend: Until 1826 the square was a place of public executions, and Romans came as though to a show: Charles Dickens left a chilling account of one. Popular tradition ties the name “popolo” to those executions, but the etymology is another and gentler one: from the Latin *populus*, the poplar, the trees that grew here.
about 19 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1 hours · Free, some areas ticketed
Rome's Jewish community is among the oldest in Europe, present in the city since the 2nd century BC. The ghetto was established by Pope Paul IV in 1555 and its walls were torn down after 1870. Today, between the Augustan Portico of Octavia and the Great Synagogue (1904), it is a lively district rich in history.
Did you know: This is the place to taste carciofi alla giudia — artichokes fried whole until they open like golden flowers, a symbol of Roman-Jewish cooking.
✦ The legend: Of the Turtle Fountain, just beyond the Portico d'Ottavia, it is said that Duke Mattei had it built in a single night to show his future father-in-law — who was refusing him his daughter after he had gambled everything away — what he was still capable of. The next morning he showed the fountain from the window, won his bride, and had that window walled up for good.
about 20 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 40 min · Free entry
One church, two masterpieces. The Cerasi Chapel holds the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter, painted by Caravaggio in 1601 and hung facing one another. The Chigi Chapel, designed by Raphael for the banker Agostino Chigi, has a mosaic dome and statues completed later by Bernini.
Did you know: In the Conversion of St Paul the protagonist is on the ground and takes up little room: almost half the picture is the horse, seen from below. It was so irreverent a choice that the patron rejected the first version.
✦ The legend: The church was founded in 1099 to rid the place of demons. Here, legend says, Nero was buried, and from the walnut tree grown over his tomb flocks of black crows flew out each night to torment travellers. Pope Paschal II had the tree cut down, the ashes scattered in the Tiber and a chapel built: the crows vanished.
about 22 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1 hours · Free, some areas ticketed
Rome's smallest hill was for centuries its most important: the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus stood here. The square you see today is Michelangelo's, entirely redesigned by him from 1536 — the gently ramped staircase, the palaces set in a trapezium, the oval pattern of the paving. On either side, the Capitoline Museums: the oldest public collection in the world.
Did you know: The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius at the centre is a copy: the original is sheltered inside the Capitoline Museums. It survived being melted down because in the Middle Ages it was believed to portray Constantine, the first Christian emperor. From the terrace behind the Palazzo Senatorio you look down over the Forum, free of charge.
✦ The legend: In 390 BC the Gauls entered Rome and climbed the Capitol by night, the last stronghold left. The sentries were asleep and the dogs did not bark, but the geese sacred to Juno, kept in the temple, heard the footsteps and set up such a din that they woke Marcus Manlius. The citadel was saved, and ever after the geese enjoyed honours in Rome that the dogs never did.
about 22 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1.5 hours · Free, some areas ticketed
The present basilica was built between 1506 and 1626 over the tomb of the Apostle Peter; the dome follows Michelangelo's design. Inside are Michelangelo's Pietà and Bernini's baldachin; the square is embraced by Bernini's colonnade (1656–1667).
Did you know: Entry to the basilica is free, but there are security checks and shoulders and knees must be covered. Climbing the dome requires a ticket.
✦ The legend: Outside the basilica, at the corner by the sacristy, a sudden wind almost always blows. Roman legend explains it like this: the devil and the wind were walking together; the devil stepped into St Peter's saying “wait here, I'll only be a moment”, and never came out again. The wind, patiently, is waiting for him still.
about 22 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 30 min · Free entry
The only island in the Tiber within the city, just over three hundred metres long. In 291 BC a temple to Aesculapius, god of medicine, was built here: the island has never stopped healing since, and still houses a hospital today. It is joined to the bank by the Ponte Fabricio of 62 BC, the oldest bridge in Rome still in use with its original structure.
Did you know: On the downstream side you can still see, carved in travertine, a ship's prow with the staff of Aesculapius: the Romans clad the island so that it really looked like the ship that had brought the god. In summer the banks below host an open-air cinema.
✦ The legend: Two legends, one about its origin and one about the hospital. The first says the island was formed from the sheaves of King Tarquin the Proud, thrown into the Tiber by the people after his expulsion and piling up there until they made land. The second tells that in 291 BC the Romans went to Epidaurus seeking Aesculapius against a plague: a sacred serpent boarded the ship of its own accord, and on the way back slipped into the water and swam to this very island. There they built the temple.
about 24 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 2 hours · Free entry
The name comes from the Latin “trans Tiberim”, across the Tiber. Cobbled lanes, ivy-covered façades and trattorias make it one of Rome's best-loved districts. At its heart is Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the city's oldest churches, with golden 12th-century mosaics shining on its façade.
Did you know: The people of Trastevere call themselves “noantri” (“we others”) to set themselves apart from the rest of Rome; every July the district celebrates its traditional Festa de' Noantri.
✦ The legend: The basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere stands, by tradition, where in 38 BC a spring of oil welled from the ground and ran down to the Tiber for a whole day. Christians read it as the announcement of Christ's birth, and the spot is still marked in the floor of the apse with the words “fons olei”.
about 26 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 45 min · Free entry
From the Janiculum terrace your eyes take in all of Rome, from the domes to the hills. Here in 1849 Garibaldi's volunteers defended the Roman Republic: dozens of busts along the avenues remember them, with the equestrian monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in the middle of the square.
Did you know: Every day at noon a cannon below the terrace fires a blank shot: the tradition dates back to 1847, when it gave the exact time to the city's bell towers.
✦ The legend: The name comes from Janus, the two-faced god, who according to myth founded his city on this very hill. More concrete and just as punctual is the cannon: since 1847 it has fired a blank every day at noon to give the exact hour to the bells of Rome's churches, which before then each rang as they pleased.
about 28 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 2.5 hours · Ticket required
For over a thousand years this was the political, religious and commercial heart of the Roman world: here orators spoke, triumphs were celebrated, justice was administered. You walk among the Curia, the arches of Septimius Severus and Titus, the House of the Vestals. Above it, the Palatine: the hill where Rome was born and where the emperors later lived.
Did you know: One ticket covers the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine: allow half a day and start with the Palatine, which is almost always quieter. Bring water and a hat: there is barely any shade on the Forum.
✦ The legend: In the middle of the Forum lies the Lacus Curtius, and legend tells why. A chasm opened in the ground and the soothsayers said it would close only on receiving what Rome held most precious. The young Marcus Curtius understood that this was the courage of her citizens: armed and on horseback, he rode into the abyss, and the earth closed over him.
about 29 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 20 min · Free, some areas ticketed
In the portico of Santa Maria in Cosmedin there is a large marble disc with a bearded face — probably once a Roman drain cover or fountain. Nearby stand two of Rome's best-preserved ancient temples, in the Forum Boarium.
Did you know: Legend says the Mouth bites the hand of anyone who lies. Its most famous scene is in “Roman Holiday” (1953), when Gregory Peck pretends to lose his hand in front of Audrey Hepburn.
✦ The legend: The marble mask, in medieval legend, bites the hand of anyone who swears falsely. A story told for centuries adds the sequel: a woman accused of adultery arranged, before the ordeal, for a stranger to embrace her in public, and so could swear she had never been in anyone's arms but her husband's and that man's. Her hand came out intact.
about 30 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 3 hours · Ticket required
One of the largest art collections in the world, begun in the early 16th century under Pope Julius II. The visit culminates in the Sistine Chapel, with the ceiling painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 and the Last Judgement (1536–1541); along the way are the Raphael Rooms.
Did you know: It is best to book on the official website to avoid long queues. Photography is not allowed in the Sistine Chapel.
✦ The legend: In the Last Judgement, Michelangelo painted Minos, judge of the underworld, with the face of Biagio da Cesena, the master of ceremonies who had objected to so much nudity. The story goes that Biagio ran to the pope to protest, and that Paul III replied that his jurisdiction did not reach hell: down there he could do nothing. The face is still in place.
about 34 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 3 hours · Ticket required
The Flavian Amphitheatre was begun by Vespasian around 70 AD and inaugurated by Titus in 80 with a hundred days of games; it held tens of thousands of spectators, shaded by a huge awning called the velarium. Next to it lie the Roman Forum, the heart of public life in ancient Rome, and the Palatine, the hill of the imperial palaces.
Did you know: The name “Colosseum” most likely comes not from the building's size but from the colossal statue of Nero that stood nearby. Tickets are sold on the official Archaeological Park website.
✦ The legend: “While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand; when falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall; and when Rome falls, the world”: the prophecy is attributed to the Venerable Bede, an English monk of the 8th century. In the Middle Ages the monument had a reputation as a haunted place, and some came here at night to summon demons among the empty arches.
about 37 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 2 hours · Ticket required
In Cardinal Scipione Borghese's villa, surrounded by the great park, are some absolute masterpieces: Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Apollo and Daphne and Rape of Proserpina, Antonio Canova's Pauline Borghese and many paintings by Caravaggio.
Did you know: In Apollo and Daphne, Bernini shows marble turning into leaves and bark — look at the nymph's fingers becoming branches. Visits run in time slots with reservation: book well ahead on the official website.
✦ The legend: Cardinal Scipione Borghese wanted Raphael's Deposition, which hung in a church in Perugia. Unable to buy it, in 1608 he had it taken down by night and carried to Rome; the city protested, and Pope Paul V — his uncle — closed the matter by presenting the Perugians with a copy. The painting is still here, and the way it got here is still told exactly like that.
about 37 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 45 min · Free entry
On the Aventine Hill, Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta was designed by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in 1765. The gate of the Priory of the Knights of Malta hides one of Rome's most surprising views; nearby, the Orange Garden offers a sunset over the Tiber and St Peter's.
Did you know: Put your eye to the keyhole in the gate and you see St Peter's dome perfectly framed by an avenue of hedges — in one glance, three states: the Sovereign Order of Malta, Italy and the Vatican.
✦ The legend: On the Aventine, in the story of Rome's founding, Remus awaited his omens and saw six vultures, while Romulus on the Palatine saw twelve: that decided which hill would become Rome. The keyhole in the gate of the Knights of Malta, by contrast, is an eighteenth-century invention of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who aligned the garden hedge so that it frames the dome of St Peter's exactly.
about 42 min on foot · Suggested visit: about 1 hours · Free, some areas ticketed
Three churches one above the other, and you really do go down. At street level the twelfth-century basilica, with the apse mosaic of the tree of the cross. Below it, the fourth-century early Christian basilica, with medieval frescoes. Lower still, some fifteen metres down, a first-century Roman building and a Mithraeum, the altar of the god Mithras still in place and a watercourse running in the dark.
Did you know: On a wall of the lower church there is an eleventh-century inscription regarded as one of the earliest written traces of Italian rather than Latin. It is a string of insults, spoken by men dragging a saint away: the language we speak begins, in writing, with a swear word.
✦ The legend: Clement, the fourth pope, was condemned to hard labour in Crimea and then thrown into the sea with an anchor round his neck. Legend tells that the sea withdrew for a week each year, uncovering a marble chapel built by angels with his body inside. That is why, in the basilica's mosaics and paintings, St Clement is shown beside an anchor.
Baroque and ancient Rome without any transport: Bernini's square, Hadrian's temple and the ruins where Caesar was killed.
Stops:
From the Pantheon to the Trevi Fountain and up to the Spanish Steps: best early in the morning or at sunset, when it is less crowded.
Stops:
☔ Good on rainy days too
Morning at the Vatican Museums (book on the official website) and St Peter's, afternoon at Castel Sant'Angelo, evening in Campo de' Fiori. Mostly indoors: ideal on rainy days too.
Stops:
The Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine (tickets on the Archaeological Park website), then walk back past Largo Argentina and the Pantheon.
Stops:
Roman cuisine · Piazza delle Coppelle 51, 00186 Roma · Closed on Sundays
For Cherì's guests. At the end of the meal the osteria offers Cherì's guests a small courtesy: an amaro and ciambelline biscuits, or a similar treat when these are not available.
This is the restaurant's own initiative, not Cherì's: bookings and the bill are settled directly with the osteria.
For these dates, the up-to-date agenda is the official one published by Turismo Roma, the City of Rome's tourism site.
Information checked on 22 Sept 2026
Addresses checked on 2 Oct 2026. Hours and closures can change: before you go, have a look at the venue's website or listing.
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