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Rome Guide

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Rome is the most fascinating city in Italy – which makes it the most fascinating city in the world. An ancient place packed with the relics of over two thousand years of inhabitation, it could ensnare you for a month and you'd still only scratch the surface. Yet it's so much more than an open-air museum: its culture, its food, its people make up a modern, vibrant city. As a historic place, it is special enough: as a contemporary European capital, it is utterly unique.

Ticking off sights is no way to enjoy Rome, but there are some places that it would be a pity to leave without seeing. The Vatican is perhaps the most obvious, most notably St Peter's and the amazing stock of loot in the Vatican museums; and the star attractions of the ancient city – the Forum and Palatine, the Colosseum – are worth a day or two in their own rights. There are also the churches, fountains and works of art from the period that can be said to most define Rome, the Baroque, and in particular the works of Borromini and Bernini, whose efforts compete for space and attention throughout the city. Bernini was responsible for the Fountain of the Four Rivers in the city's most famous square, Piazza Navona, among other things; but arguably his best sculptural work is in the Galleria Borghese, or in various churches, like his statue of St Theresa in Santa Maria in Vittoria. Borromini, his great rival at the time, built the churches of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and Sant'Ivo, both buildings intricately squeezed into small sites – Borromini's trademark. There are other great palaces that are themselves treasure troves of great art, like the Doria-Pamphilj and Palazzo Barberini; and unmissable museums, like the august galleries of the Capitoline, and the main collections of the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Palazzo Altemps and Palazzo Massimo, all of which hold staggering and beautifully displayed collections of the cream of the city's ancient art and sculpture. And finally there's the city beneath all this: stroll through the centro storico in the early morning, through Trastevere at sunset, or gaze down at the roofs and domes from the Janiculum Hill on a clear day, and you'll quickly realize that there's no place in Italy like it.