Rome: top attractions & road trip guide
Rome is Italy's capital and once the center of a vast empire, layering more than two and a half thousand years of history into a single city. Ancient ruins, Renaissance palaces, and Baroque fountains sit side by side, making it one of the most visited cities in the world and a living museum of Western civilization.
For a road trip, Rome works best as a bookend rather than a driving destination: its historic center is a dense maze of narrow one-way streets, many covered by a ZTL restricted-traffic zone, so most visitors park at the city's edge or in a garage and continue on foot or by metro. The surrounding Lazio countryside, with its lakes and hill towns, offers an easy detour before or after the city stop.
Top attractions
Colosseum
The largest amphitheater ever built, completed in 80 AD, once hosted gladiator contests and public spectacles for up to 50,000 spectators.
Roman Forum
The political, religious, and commercial heart of ancient Rome, now an open-air archaeological site of temple ruins, arches, and basilicas.
Trevi Fountain
An 18th-century Baroque fountain depicting Oceanus on a chariot, tradition holds that tossing a coin over the shoulder ensures a return to Rome.
Pantheon
A remarkably preserved Roman temple from the 2nd century AD, famous for its massive unreinforced concrete dome and central oculus.
Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel
A vast papal art collection culminating in the Sistine Chapel, whose ceiling and altar wall were painted by Michelangelo.
Piazza Navona
A elongated Baroque square built over an ancient stadium, centered on Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers.
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