In this article we will explain how to visit Rome, the eternal city in only 3 days!
How to visit Rome in three days, if you only have one weekend, a long bank holiday or if you are in Rome and want to act as a guide for your friends who have come to visit you… this is the article for you. Written by a born and bred Roman. Well defined with clear routes, advice, hidden gems and maps.
The guide consists in a map and brief description of each place (although for some monuments only a part description so as not to overwhelm you.) From Piazza Del Popolo to Terme Di Caracalla, passing through Colosseo, Fontana di Trevi, Piazza di Spagna, as well as an ancient human skeleton tomb where the monks would worship, where to eat like a Roman (Coda alla vaccianara etc.. )..
How to visit Rome in 3 days!:
Today we will see the Crypt of the Capuchins, which is found in Via Veneto / P.zza Barberini, and is a church crypt made up of human bones. Afterwards we will go to terme di caracalla and lastly the Trastevere. Which will be yet another fantastic day!
In this guide we haven’t included Musei Vaticani, which if you wish to see, we suggest you replace it with Terme di Caracalla. The visit to Musei Vaticani lasta 3 hours, the ticket costs more or less 20 euros and you can buy them here. To visit the Musei Vaticani you have to queue for a long, long time and lose the entire afternoon (it closes at 18:00). To get there, get line A on the metro and get off at Ottaviano o Cipro and ask there.
A) Before each thing you have to buy daily public transport tickets. Forget about your car in Rome, it would be suicide! Better to hire a scooter.
B) From the moment you wake up at 8:30 you will have a tasty breakfast (cornetto and capuccino) are compulsory. And you will make your lunch for the day i.e. a sandwich, baguette. As Rome is very touristic, everything is very expensive. For a small bottle of water, you can pay up to 2 euros, (the other day, I saw a fruit stand in Via Dei Fori Imperiali where the prunes cost 13 euros a kilo… 13 euros!!! In the supermarket however, they cost only 3.50 a kilo.)
C) Your walk starts at 10:00 am.
D) Familiarize yourselves well with this map and make notes (I advise you to print these pages out)
E) Print your map of how to visit Rome in three days,
ready to draw your route on it.
F) Print the guide of how to visit Rome in three days,
all three days together.
1 –Colle del Quirinale e Palazzo
The Quirinal Hill (Latin: Collis Quirinalis) is one of the Seven Hills of Rome, at the north-east of the city center. It is the location of the official residence of the Italian Head of State, who resides in the Quirinal Palace; by metonymy “the Quirinal” has come to stand for the Italian President.
It was originally part of a group of hills that included Collis Latiaris, Mucialis (or Sanqualis), Salutaris. These are now lost due to building in the 16th century and later.
According to Roman legend, the Quirinal Hill was the site of a small village of the Sabines, and king Titus Tatius would have lived there after the peace between Romans and Sabines. These Sabines had erected altars in the honour of their god Quirinus (naming the hill by this god).
Tombs from the 8th century BC to the 7th century BC that confirm a likely presence of a Sabine settlement area have been discovered; on the hill, there was the tomb of Quirinus, which Lucius Papirius Cursor transformed into a temple for his triumph after the third Samnite war. Some authors consider it possible that the cult of the Capitoline Triad (Jove, Minerva, Juno) could have been celebrated here well before it became associated with the Capitoline Hill. The sanctuary of Flora, an Osco-sabine goddess, was here too.
According to Livy, the hill first became part of the city of Rome, along with the Viminal Hill, during the reign of Servius Tullius, Rome’ sixth king, in the 6th century BC.
In 446 BC, a temple was dedicated on the Quirinal in honour of Semo Sancus Dius Fidius, and it is possible that this temple was erected over the ruins of another temple. Augustus, too, ordered the building of a temple, dedicated to Mars. On a slope of the Quirinal were the extensive gardens of Sallust.
On the Quirinal Hill Constantine ordered the erection of his baths, the last thermae complex erected in imperial Rome. These are now lost, having been incorporated into Renaissance Rome, with only some drawings from the 16th century remaining.
In the Middle Ages, the Torre delle Milizie and the convent of St. Peter and Domenic were built, and above Constantine’s building was erected the Palazzo Rospigliosi; the two famous colossal marble statues of the “Horse Tamers”, generally identified as the Dioscuri with horses, which now are in the Piazza Quirinale, were originally in this Palazzo. They gave to the Quirinal its medieval name Monte Cavallo, which lingered into the 19th century, when the hill was transformed beyond all recognition by urbanization of an expanding capital of a united Italy. In the same palazzo were also the two statues of river gods that Michelangelo moved to the steps of Palazzo Senatorio on the Capitoline Hill.
According to the political division of the center of Rome, the Hill belongs to the rione Trevi.
The Quirinal Hill is today identified with the Palazzo del Quirinale, the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic and one of the symbols of the State. Before the abolition of the Italian monarchy in 1946, it was the residence of the king of Italy, and before 1871 it was, as originally, a residence of the Pope.
The healthy cool air of the Quirinal Hill attracted aristocrats and papal families that built villas where the gardens of Sallust had been in antiquity. A visit to the villa of Cardinal Luigi d’Este in 1573 convinced Pope Gregory XIII to start the building of a summer residence the following year, in an area considered healthier than the Vatican Hill or Lateran: His architects were Flaminio Ponzio and Ottaviano Nonni, called Mascherino; under Pope Sixtus V, works were continued by Domenico Fontana (the main facade on the Piazza) and Carlo Maderno, and by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Clement XII. Gardens were conceived by Maderno. In the 18th century, Ferdinando Fuga built the long wing called the Manica Lunga, which stretched 360 meters along via del Quirinale. In front lies the sloping Piazza del Quirinale where the pair of gigantic Roman marble “Horse Tamers” representing Castor and Pollux, found in the Baths of Constantine, were re-erected in 1588. In Piranesi’s view, the vast open space is unpaved. The Palazzo del Quirinale was the residence of the popes until 1870, though Napoleon deported both Pius VI and Pius VII to France, and declared the Quirinale an imperial palace. When Rome was united to the Kingdom of Italy, the Quirinale became the residence of the kings until 1946.
Today, the Palazzo hosts the offices and the apartments of the Head of State and, in its long side along via XX Settembre (the so-called Manica Lunga), the apartments that were furnished for each visit of foreign monarchs or dignitaries.
Several collections are in this Palazzo, including tapestries, paintings, statues, old carriages (carrozze), watches, furniture, and porcelain.
In Piranesi’s view, the palazzo on the right is the Palazzo della Sacra Consulta, originally a villa built upon the ruins of the Baths of Constantine, which was adapted by Sixtus V as a civil and criminal court. The present façade was built in 1732–1734 by the architect Ferdinando Fuga on the orders of Pope Clement XII Corsini, whose coat-of-arms, trumpeted by two Fames, still surmounts the roofline balustrade, as in Piranesi’s view. It formerly housed Mussolini’s ministry of colonial affairs.
The Capuchin Crypt is a small space comprising several tiny chapels located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini in Rome, Italy. It contains the skeletal remains of 3,700 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their order. The Catholic order insists that the display is not meant to be macabre, but a silent reminder of the swift passage of life on Earth and our own mortality.
Described by Frommer’s as “one of the most horrifying images in all of Christendom”, large numbers of the bones are nailed to the walls in intricate patterns, many are piled high among countless others, while others hang from the ceiling as light fixtures.
When the monks arrived at the church in 1631, moving from the old monastery, they brought 300 cartloads of deceased friars. Fr. Michael of Bergamo oversaw the arrangement of the bones in the burial crypt. The soil in the crypt was brought from Jerusalem, by order of Pope Urban VIII.
As monks died during the lifetime of the crypt, the longest-buried monk was exhumed to make room for the newly deceased who was buried without a coffin, and the newly reclaimed bones were added to the decorative motifs. Bodies typically spent 30 years decomposing in the soil, before being exhumed.
The baths remained in use until the 6th century when the complex was taken by the Ostrogoths during the Gothic War, at which time the hydraulic installations were destroyed. The bath was free and open to the public. The building was heated by a hypocaust, a system of burning coal and wood underneath the ground to heat water provided by a dedicated aqueduct. It was in use up to the 19th century. The Aqua Marcia aqueduct by Caracalla was specifically built to serve the baths. It was most likely reconstructed by Garbrecht and Manderscheid to its current place.
In the 19th and early 20th century, the design of the baths was used as the inspiration for several modern structures, including St George’s Hall in Liverpool and Pennsylvania Station in New York City. At the 1960 Summer Olympics, the venue hosted the gymnastics events.
The baths were the only archaeological site in Rome damaged by an earthquake near L’Aquila in 2009.
Baths were originally ornamented with high quality sculptures, for example, among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull and Farnese Hercules and over life-size early 3rd century patriotic figures (now in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). One of many statues is the colossal 4 m statue of Asclepius.
4 – Trastevere
Trastevere is the 13th rione of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally “beyond the Tiber”. The correct pronunciation is [trasˈteːvere], with the accent on the second syllable. Its logo is a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which is uncertain. To the north, Trastevere borders on to the XIV rione, Borgo.
In Rome’s Regal period (753-509 BC), the area across the Tiber belonged to the hostile Etruscans: the Romans named it Ripa Etrusca (Etruscan bank). Rome conquered it to gain control of and access to the river from both banks, but was not interested in building on that side of the river. In fact, the only connection between Trastevere and the rest of the city was a small wooden bridge called the Pons Sublicius (Latin: “bridge built on wooden piles”).
By the time of the Republic c. 509 BC, the number of sailors and fishermen making a living from the river had increased, and many had taken up residence in Trastevere. Immigrants from the East also settled there, mainly Jews and Syrians. The area began to be considered part of the city under Augustus, who divided Rome into 14 regions (regiones in Latin); modern Trastevere was the XIV and was called Trans Tiberim.
Since the end of the Roman Republic the quarter was also the center of an important Jewish community, which inhabited there until the end of the Middle Ages.
With the wealth of the Imperial Age, several important figures decided to build their villae in Trastevere, including Clodia, (Catullus’ “friend”) and Julius Caesar (his garden villa, the Horti Caesaris). The regio included two of the most ancient churches in Rome, the Titulus Callixti, later called the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, and the Titulus Cecilae, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.
In order to have a stronghold on the right Bank and to control the Gianicolo hill, Transtiberim was partially included by Emperor Aurelian (270–275) inside the wall erected to defend the city against the Germanic tribes.
In the Middle Ages Trastevere had narrow, winding, irregular streets; moreover, because of the mignani (structures on the front of buildings) there was no space for carriages to pass. At the end of the 15th century these mignani were removed. Nevertheless, Trastevere remained a maze of narrow streets. There was a strong contrast between the large, opulent houses of the upper classes and the small, dilapidated houses of the poor. The streets had no pavement until the time of Sixtus IV at the end of the 15th century. At first bricks were used, but these were later replaced by sampietrini (cobble stones), which were more suitable for carriages. Thanks to its partial isolation (it was “beyond the Tiber”) and to the fact that its population had been multicultural since the ancient Roman period, the inhabitants of Trastevere, called Trasteverini, developed a culture of their own. In 1744 Benedict XIV modified the borders of the rioni, giving Trastevere its modern limits.
Nowadays, Trastevere maintains its character thanks to its narrow cobbled streets lined by medieval houses. At night, natives and tourists alike flock to its many pubs and restaurants, but much of the original character of Trastevere remains. The area is also home to several foreign academic institutions including The American University of Rome and John Cabot University (both of which are private American universities), the American Academy in Rome, the Rome campus of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, the Canadian University of Waterloo School of Architecture (between the months of September and December), and the American Pratt Institute School of Architecture therefore serving as home to an international student body.
The unique character of this neighborhood has attracted artists, foreign expats, and many famous people. In the sixties and seventies, the American musicians/composers Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of the group Musica Elettronica Viva, lived in Via della Luce. Sergio Leone, the director of Spaghetti Westerns, grew up in Viale Glorioso (there is a marble plaque to his memory on the wall of the apartment building), and went to a Catholic private school in the neighborhood. Ennio Morricone, the film music composer, went to the same school, and for one year was in the same class as Sergio Leone.
4.1 – Typical Trastevere Trattoria
How could you visit Rome in three days and not eat in a typical restaurant like this. If you are visiting Trastevere day or night, you can’t not go to Enzo’s restaurant in Via dei Vascellari 19. We have tried the menu and we recommend it 100% both as far as its quality food and its rustic atmosphere. Its an average priced restaurant. Check the “where to eat guide in Rome”.
4.2 – Trastevere at night
Trastevere at night. Trasteveere is a wonderful neighbourhood to go out at night with its beautiful typical squares, which you will love.
5 – End of the trip, you go home …
If you still have time you can visit the wonders of this eternal city or rent a car and visit the outskirts of Rome. Let us know if you have enjoyed our guide of how to visit Rome in three days.