Experience Rome

So many potential adventures! Start with finding the treasures of the Vatican Museum.

As you walk through the Vatican Museum, you'll be dazzled by treasure after treasure, all accumulated over the centuries by the popes. There's Michelangelo's incomparable Sistine Chapel, priceless ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, and rooms whose walls were almost completely executed by Raphael.

This Flavian amphitheater never fails to impress--for its elegant, enduring bulk, and its disturbing former function as a theater of slaughter. A visit inside the massive structure is certainly rewarding-but walking around the exterior, at night, is just as exciting.

Bustling with energy night and day,the Campo is the beating heart of Rome. In the morning, the stalls of the city's most famous fruit and vegetable market sell produce to top chefs and local housewives. At night, the city's bright young things descend on the piazza's cafes and wine bars for an evening aperitivo and effervescent conversation.

On summer nights you'll find Romans -- especially those who live in crowded apartments without air-conditioning -- out strolling from fountain to cooling fountain. Every visitor makes at least one trip to Bernini's fountain on Piazza Navona, after stopping off at the Trevi Fountain to toss in a coin (thus ensuring their return to Rome).

Fortunately, the sweeping beauty of the Scalinata di Piazza di Spagna transcends the crowds of tourists that populate the square day and night. The climb to the high terrace covers 12 curving flights of steps of varying widths, but the view from the top is exhilarating.

This incomprehensibly voluminous Vatican basilica is packed with incalculable riches, from the marble and gold that cover its every surface to such masterpieces as Michelangelo's Pietà and Bernini's Baldacchino. It's quite possibly the largest, most impressive, most jaw-dropping cathedral the world has ever seen.

Nothing can match the romance of discovering your own little neighborhood trattoria that opens onto some forgotten square deep in the heart of ancient Rome. And if your evening meal extends for 3 or 4 hours, who's counting? The waiters won't rush you out the door even when you've overstayed your time at the table.

This overpowering castle on the Tiber was Rome's chief citadel and dungeon, and has seen more blood, treachery, and turmoil than any other left in Rome. It was built in the 2nd century as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian; if it looks like a fortress, it should -- that was its function in the Middle Ages.

Leave the hustle and bustle of the centro far behind. From the catacombs to the ruined villas of Roman patricians, there's a quiet but heavy sense of history here. Umbrella pines and farmland perfume the air, transporting you back to a time when this was Rome's Queen of Roads.