Rome

ROMESTARTER

The Steps and the Terrace

≈ 1,100 steps0.5 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

Two hours uphill and back down, ending on the balcony the rest of the city is laid out below. Best in the last hour of daylight, when the Pincio terrace fills up and the domes go orange.

ROMESTARTER

Three Fountains Before the Crowds

≈ 1,400 steps0.7 mi · about 2 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

A flat walk of about a kilometre through the old centre, done best between seven and nine in the morning when the water is the loudest thing in the square. Three fountains, three centuries, no ticket at any of them.

ROMESTARTER

Trastevere After Dark

≈ 500 steps0.3 mi · about 1.5 hoursStarter · 3 stops · 500 credStart where you live.

Ninety minutes across the river once the light has gone, from a bridge built for a Jubilee to the square where the neighbourhood actually sits. Short, flat, and loud in a good way.

ROMESTANDARD

Ancient Rome Without a Ticket

≈ 4,000 steps2.0 mi · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day walking the free ground around the ruins everyone queues for. You do not go inside the Forum or the Colosseum on this one; you stand on the public streets and terraces that look straight into both.

ROMESTANDARD

Over the River to Saint Peter's

≈ 9,000 steps4.2 mi · about 4.5 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day from the Tiber to the top of the Janiculum, taking in the free half of the Vatican: the square, not the museums. About four kilometres, with one real climb at the end.

ROMESTANDARD

The Aventine and the Market Quarter

≈ 4,000 steps1.9 mi · about 4 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day on the quiet hill and the working quarter under it: a chariot valley, an orange grove, a keyhole, a pyramid and a food market that shuts at half past three. Start in the morning so the market is still open when you reach it.

ROMESTANDARD

The Island and the Ghetto

≈ 1,700 steps0.8 mi · about 3.5 hoursStandard · 5 stops · 600 credOne trip earns it.

Half a day on the oldest ground in the city centre: a boat-shaped island, the two bridges that have held it since the Republic, and the quarter behind it that was walled shut for three hundred years.

ROMEADVANCED

The Circuit of the Aurelian Wall

≈ 18,000 steps8.5 mi · a full dayAdvanced III · 11 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

The hardest day Rome can give you on foot: about nineteen kilometres following the third-century wall the whole way round the old city, gate by gate, on pavement with almost no shade. Start at first light, carry water, and expect eight to ten hours. The Appia gate is left out here because it belongs to another day.

ROMEADVANCED

The Queen of Roads and the Aqueducts

≈ 10,000 steps + 3.4 mi by car4.8 mi on foot · a full dayAdvanced · 7 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

A full day out of the walls along the Appia and back across the aqueduct fields, about fifteen kilometres, easiest on a bicycle. The tombs and villas along the way sell their own tickets; the road, the pasture and the arcades do not.

ROMEADVANCED

Two Days in the Alban Hills

≈ 3,000 steps + 18 mi by car1.5 mi on foot · 2 days or more · + 2 stretches not routedAdvanced II · 9 stops · 800 credGetting there is not the hard part.

Two days and a car through the Castelli Romani, the volcano rim where Rome goes on a Sunday: two crater lakes, a papal town, a Baroque village standing on a viaduct, and the ruined hill city that watched Rome before Rome was anything. Trains reach Frascati and Castel Gandolfo; the rest needs wheels.