Rome travel guide — where to stay, what to do, and where to eat in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
Top day trips
Handpicked excursions within easy reach.
Tivoli – Villa d'Este & Hadrian's Villa
Tivoli packs two UNESCO sites that show opposite sides of the same wealth: Villa d'Este is a 16th-century cardinal's water garden with hundreds of fountains cut into a hillside, and Hadrian's Villa is the sprawling, ruined country retreat an actual Roman emperor built for himself. Seeing both in a day means the fountains of the Renaissance next to the scale of imperial Rome, a few kilometres apart.
Highlights: Villa d'Este's Hundred Fountains walkway - a long terrace lined with continuously running water spouts · Villa d'Este's Fountain of the Organ - a fountain that mechanically plays music using water pressure · Hadrian's Villa's Canopus - a long reflecting pool lined with statues modelled on an Egyptian canal · Hadrian's Villa's Maritime Theatre - a circular island retreat Hadrian used to withdraw from his own court
Pompeii & Mount Vesuvius
Pompeii is the excavated Roman city buried by the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius, with streets, houses, a forum and amphitheatre preserved under ash; Vesuvius itself is the still-active volcano responsible, with a marked trail to the crater rim. The two sites are linked by the same eruption but are physically separate and each deserves real time, which makes combining them in a single day tight rather than comfortable.
Highlights: Pompeii's Forum - the city's political and religious centre, ringed by temple ruins · Pompeii's House of the Faun - one of the largest private houses in the ancient city, named for its bronze statue · Pompeii's Garden of the Fugitives - plaster casts of victims caught in the eruption · Vesuvius's summit trail - a marked path along the crater rim of the volcano that destroyed Pompeii
Orvieto
Orvieto sits on a flat-topped volcanic plateau in southern Umbria, reached from the train station by funicular, and is built around a Gothic cathedral with a striped marble and mosaic facade. Underneath the town is a network of Etruscan and medieval caves and wells cut into the soft volcanic rock, so the day trip works both above and below ground.
Highlights: Orvieto Cathedral's facade - a Gothic front covered in gold mosaics and relief carving · The Chapel of San Brizio inside the Cathedral - Luca Signorelli's fresco cycle of the Last Judgment · Pozzo di San Patrizio - a deep double-helix well built so mules could descend and ascend on separate staircases · Orvieto Underground - guided tours through the caves, cisterns and tunnels beneath the town
Civita di Bagnoregio
Civita di Bagnoregio is a small medieval settlement on an isolated tuff outcrop, connected to the modern town of Bagnoregio only by a long pedestrian footbridge, and it has shrunk to a population in the single digits as erosion has eaten away at the plateau around it. It's a slow, small-scale visit rather than a full day of activity, so it pairs naturally with time in Bagnoregio proper or another nearby town.
Highlights: The pedestrian bridge into Civita - the only way in or out, with views over the eroded Calanchi badlands below · Church of San Donato - the small Romanesque church at the centre of Civita's main square · Bagnoregio's Belvedere di Santa Maria del Cardinale - a viewpoint looking across the valley at Civita's isolated outcrop
Viterbo – Medieval Town & Thermal Baths
Viterbo is a walled medieval city built on volcanic rock, known for the Palazzo dei Papi where 13th-century cardinals held the longest papal conclave in history, and for the San Pellegrino quarter of stone houses and external staircases that has changed little since the Middle Ages. The area is also a thermal spring region, so a day here can mix medieval sightseeing with an afternoon at the baths.
Highlights: Palazzo dei Papi - the papal palace where the 1268-71 conclave, the longest in Church history, was held · San Pellegrino quarter - a medieval neighbourhood of stone houses connected by external staircases and covered passages · Terme dei Papi - a thermal spa fed by the same sulphur springs the Romans and medieval popes used
Frascati & Castelli Romani Wine Country
Frascati is the best-known of the Castelli Romani, the ring of hill towns southeast of Rome where popes and Roman nobility built summer villas, and it gives its name to the crisp white wine produced on the surrounding slopes. The town centre looks out over the vineyards and back toward Rome, and its cellars make for an easy wine-focused day trip.
Highlights: Villa Aldobrandini - a 16th-century villa with formal gardens and a water theatre overlooking Frascati · Frascati's wine cellars - cantine built into the tuff rock where the local DOC white wine is aged and tasted · Castel Gandolfo - the nearby Castelli town built around the papal summer residence overlooking Lake Albano
Naples
Naples is Italy's third-largest city, a dense historic centre that is a UNESCO site in its own right, home to Neapolitan pizza and to art that has nothing to do with the coast, including a sculpture so fine it's often mistaken for actual cloth. It's a working, lived-in city rather than a preserved museum piece, and the day trip rewards picking a few focused stops over trying to see everything.
Highlights: Cappella Sansevero - a small chapel holding the Veiled Christ, a marble sculpture carved to look draped in transparent cloth · Naples National Archaeological Museum - the Farnese antiquities collection and finds moved here from Pompeii and Herculaneum · Spaccanapoli - the long straight street that cuts through the old centre, lined with churches and street life · Castel dell'Ovo - a seafront castle on a small island connected to the city by a causeway
Sperlonga
Sperlonga is a small seaside town with a whitewashed old quarter built on a headland above two long sandy beaches, and it holds a genuine piece of imperial Roman history: a grotto the emperor Tiberius used as a dining room, decorated with large-scale sculpture now housed in a museum on the site. It's a beach day with one significant archaeological stop built in, rather than a sightseeing-heavy itinerary.
Highlights: Grotta di Tiberio - the sea cave where Tiberius dined, with an adjoining museum displaying the sculptures found inside it · The old town of Sperlonga - a hilltop cluster of whitewashed alleys and archways above the coastline · Sperlonga's beaches - long stretches of sand either side of the headland
Lake Bracciano & Bracciano Castle
Lake Bracciano is a volcanic crater lake northwest of Rome, and the town on its eastern shore is dominated by the Orsini-Odescalchi Castle, a fifteenth-century fortress still owned by a private family and used for events. The appeal is the combination of a walkable medieval town, a swimmable lake with a stony beach, and a castle interior with furnished period rooms rather than an empty ruin. It suits a slower day than most Rome side trips: no single blockbuster sight, just a pleasant town, a lake, and one solid interior to visit.
Highlights: Orsini-Odescalchi Castle - a lived-in Renaissance fortress with frescoed rooms and battlements overlooking the lake · Lake Bracciano shoreline - a volcanic lake clean enough to swim in, with small beaches near the town · Bracciano's historic centre - narrow streets climbing to the castle, largely unchanged since the medieval period · Sutri or Trevignano (nearby lakeside villages) - reachable if you want to extend the day around the lake
Anzio & WWII Beaches
Anzio is a small port town on the coast south of Rome, known primarily as the site of the January 1944 Allied amphibious landing that led to months of brutal fighting before the breakout toward Rome. A day here is built around that history rather than the town itself: the beaches where the landings happened, the war cemeteries nearby, and a small museum, rather than shopping streets or major architecture. It's a meaningful day for anyone with an interest in WWII history, but a quieter and less visually dramatic one than Rome's ancient sites.
Highlights: Anzio's landing beaches - the actual shoreline where Allied forces came ashore in Operation Shingle · Sicily-Rome American Cemetery (in nearby Nettuno) - rows of white crosses and Stars of David marking American war dead from the campaign · Museo dello Sbarco (Anzio Landing Museum) - a small local museum on the invasion and the town's wartime experience · Anzio harbour - the working fishing port, with seafood restaurants along the water
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Multi-day tours from Rome
If you have longer than a day, these are organised multi-day trips that start here.
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Day trip tips
Make the most of your excursions.
For Tivoli, start with Villa d'Este (opens 08:30) before Hadrian's Villa (larger, needs 2–3 hours); both tickets bookable at coopculture.it
Pompeii entry €18 (~$20); book at pompeiisites.org — queues without a ticket can be 90 min in summer
Orvieto's Duomo (cathedral) charges €4 (~$4.40) entry; the underground caves tour is €7 (~$7.70) — worth adding
Civita di Bagnoregio charges a pedestrian bridge toll of €5 (~$5.50) to enter the village
Frascati wine tasting at local cantinas from €10–20/person; many open to walk-in visitors on weekends
For day trips by train, validate your ticket at the yellow machines on the platform before boarding or risk a €50 fine