An Italian cultural ambassador's guide to Rome
Barbara LeddaAlberto Angela has made a career out of exploring his hometown. Here are his favourite spots to unearth Rome's millennia of secrets, from the Vatican Museums to Ostia Antica.
From the 1st-Century BCE ruins of the Imperial Forum to the Trevi Fountain’s Baroque splendour, Rome packs such an overwhelming myriad of postcard-worthy landmarks that digging through its historical layers can make any visitor feel like they've turned into an archaeologist.
Alberto Angela, a TV presenter, global ambassador for Italian heritage, art, history and culture, and a familiar face in Italian living rooms for nearly four decades knows a thing or two about his hometown's 2,000 years of history – and he's ready to help visitors discover it, especially as this year's Jubilee newly puts it into the limelight.
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Alberto Angela is an Italian palaeontologist and TV presenter raised and based in Rome. A well-recognised public scholar, he has published books and conducted documentaries for Italian state broadcaster RAI on science, history and archaeology-related topics for the past 36 years.
"Rome has two faces," says Angela. "The Papal – that of the rich – and its working-class soul, the one that is closest to us… the most interesting," he says.
In a city where grand basilicas lie next to shady alleyways, Angela recommends exploring without cramming in too many sights – so that one can "immerse oneself in the world of the ancients".
Having followed in the footsteps of his famous father, Piero Angela – Italy's most well-known documentarist often called a "national treasure" – the younger Angela attributes his career and love of history to growing up in the Italian capital.
"You breathe history here," he says. "Anyone who comes to Rome can see the same afterglow Caesar would have seen. You aren't in a place that doesn't exist anymore. Rome was rebuilt on top of its ancient structures."
For Angela, this is what makes Rome so unique. "The city did not cancel its history, unlike many others," he says. "Living here, you understand the ancients."
Emerging from a small market settlement on the Tiber, the city of Rome was at an intersection between the Mediterranean and mainland Europe, making it a crossroads that swelled into the world’s first true metropolis. Angela believes that the city's immense global-reaching political and symbolic impact throughout history means everyone has a "piece" of Rome inside them – which is why it can have such a profound impact on those who visit it.
Here are Angela's favourite ways to experience ancient history in modern Rome.
Alamy1. Best place to experience ancient Rome: The Palatine Hill
Much of central Rome's labyrinthine urban grid is a direct heir of the former imperial capital, with public spaces like the Baroque Piazza Navona or Campo de’ Fiori piazza taking their shape from a bygone stadium and theatre, respectively.
Tip:
Trying to cram in all of Rome's main landmarks in a few days is an Olympian feat, so Angela recommends first-time visitors follow a three-day rule.
"See the major sights on the first and second days – Saint Peter's, the Pantheon, the Colosseum," he says. "And then on the third day, choose yourself, to see something cool [off the beaten path]. When you get home, you'll feel you'll have seen the things everyone talks about, but you'll also have seen something you yourself like."
But on the Palatine Hill, the mythical birthplace of Rome, you can actually walk on the same stones where emperors Augustus and Nero once dwelled.
"It's the place where the Caesars lived and died," Angela says.
As the legend goes, twin brothers Romulus and Remus received an omen from the gods and decided to lay the foundations of a new city on the Palatine Hill in 753 BCE. In the subsequent centuries, the Palatine developed into an exclusive neighbourhood of patrician villas and Imperial palaces – indeed, it’s where the word “palace” takes its root.
One of the legendary seven hills of the ancient city, offering an incomparable vantage point with a 360 panorama, Palatine Hill offers what Angela describes as "a beautiful walk", with arguably the best views of the Colosseum – the unmistakable "star of ancient Rome".
Visiting the Palatine is a full immersion into the life of the Roman empire, with a plethora of impressive ruins, including the mosaic floors of Augustus's palace, Domitian's hippodrome and the balcony overlooking the Circus Maximus racecourse.
Website: https://colosseo.it/en/area/the-palatine/
Address: Parco archeologico del Colosseo, Via di S. Gregorio 30, 00186
Phone: + 39 06 21115 843
Instagram: @parcocolosseo
Alamy2. The Vatican's best-kept secret: The Necropolis
As the centre of Catholicism and one of the most important sites in Christendom, the Unesco-listed Vatican is firmly entrenched among Rome's unmissable sights. In honour of the 2025 Jubilee, tourists and pilgrims alike are flocking to Saint Peter's Basilica to walk through its Holy Door, opened for the occasion every quarter of a century.
But while much of the Holy See's architectural majesty is immediately apparent – from the Michelangelo- and Giacomo della Porta-designed designed dome of Saint Peter's all the way to the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums – some of its greatest treasures are hidden underground.
"Once in Saint Peter's, you walk on beautiful marble floorings, you look up to the Baldachin," says Angela, renowned for his 2015 TV miniseries Alla Scoperta dei Musei Vaticani (Discovering the Vatican Museums). "But you can go underground. The Popes' tombs can be found underneath, but under those is the ancient Roman graveyard where Peter the Apostle himself was buried. The foundations of [the Basilica] are a graveyard."
The Vatican Necropolis, excavated only in the 1940s, features mausoleums belonging to citizens of many faiths, as well as a cluster of tombs called "Field P”, suspected by some scholars to hold the burial chamber of the Church founder himself.
"It's a trip into ancient Rome that you wouldn't expect to find [there]", Angela says. "It makes you understand how Rome really is."
Visitors must book visits to the Necropolis on the official website of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The dress code mandates covered shoulders and below-the-knee clothing.
Website: https://www.basilicasanpietro.va/en/san-pietro/the-necropolis
Address: Piazza San Pietro, 00120 Città del Vaticano, Vatican City
Phone: +39 06 6988 5318
Instagram: @basilicasanpietro.va
Alamy3. Best church for experiencing all of Rome's historical eras in one fell swoop: The Basilica of San Clemente al Laterano
Rome has more than 900 Catholic sites of worship built over the course of the centuries. Now and then, there's one that best encapsulates the city's multi-millennial history, like Angela's pick, the Basilica of San Clemente.
"This Basilica conceals the three souls of Rome – Baroque, medieval and ancient," Angela says. "Anyone who comes across it is enchanted."
Tucked behind the Colosseum and a composite of two different churches, San Clemente – dedicated to the third pope of the same name – has been a site of worship since ancient Roman times, when it served as a temple for the Zoroastrian cult of Mithras.
The temple eventually swelled into its grand current form, featuring an intricate overlay of architectural styles – from its Renaissance courtyard and the Mannerist facade of the main Basilica, all the way to its underground, early medieval second structure, which hides ancient Roman remnants.
"The exterior is beautiful and well-maintained, from the 16th Century, with a Cosmatesque [geometric] marble flooring, and then you take the stairs and arrive at the medieval Basilica," says Angela. "And you find yourself right in ancient Rome, in a Roman temple."
Website: https://www.basilicasanclemente.com/eng/
Address: Piazza di S. Clemente, 00184
Phone: +39 06 774 0021
Instagram: @sanclementeroma
Alamy4. Best off-the-beaten-path museum: The Museo della Comunicazione Scritta dei Romani
From 17th-Century Villa Borghese to the Capitoline, the city’s oldest art gallery, Rome has no shortage of museums displaying a vast array of artefacts – matched by equally colossal crowds of spectators.
While Angela certainly recommends visitors enjoy the time-worn classics, he also suggests a quieter, quirkier alternative: the Museo della Comunicazione Scritta dei Romani.
Conveniently located a mere five-minute walk from the Termini train station, the museum is found inside the Baths of Diocletian, where the majestic 4th-Century Imperial termae have survived in remarkable condition. It is also home to a curious collection of esoteric Roman artefacts, showing how the ancients dabbled in the occult.
"It's a museum dedicated to how Romans expressed themselves," Angela says. "But there's a part dedicated to magic, voodoo of sorts."
Superstition was the unspoken crux of ancient Roman life, but one that we often overlook. "It's a world that often gets left behind, that of spiritual beliefs," he adds. "They found the objects in a parking lot."
Among the objects on display is a large copper cauldron, curse tablets (defixiones), ritual tools and even Christian spells.
"For someone coming from the station, especially if it rains, it's quite an intriguing thing to visit," says Angela.
Alamy5. Best for exploring Baroque Rome: Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
The 16th to 18th Centuries were a crucial time for Rome's urban development, as the city's aristocratic families – including the Farnese, Borghese, Doria and Pamphilj – vied for social dominance through commissioning lavish building projects, all designed in the Baroque style favoured by the Papal Counter-Reformation.
"I'd advise anyone coming to visit Rome to see the palaces of the powerful Roman families," says Angela.
While listing a few examples – Palazzo Colonna and Palazzo Farnese among them – few rival the opulence of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, Rome's very own "Versailles", in Angela's words.
The product of an alliance of noble families, what resulted was a Baroque fantasy come to life and an impressive art collection featuring the works of many of Italy's greats, from Titian to Raphael.
Its crown jewel is its Hall of Mirrors, commissioned by Gabriele Valvassori in the 1730s and featuring whimsical frescos, gilded Venetian frescos and ornate gold-plated furniture.
"I had never been prior to shooting [a TV special] and it's truly spectacular," he says. "It truly surpasses anything else."
Website: https://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/
Address: Via del Corso 305, 00186
Phone: +39 06 679 7323
Instagram: @galleriadoriapamphilj
Alamy6. Best historic landmark outside of the centre: Ostia Antica
Many visitors coming to Rome don't know that the city has what Angela considers its very own "Pompeii" around 32km from the city centre: Ostia Antica.
Once Rome's sea port, potentially from as early as the 7th Century BCE, Ostia Antica developed into a bustling seaside suburb, reaching a peak of 75,000 inhabitants in the late Imperial age. While the city declined after the empire’s fall, and the coastline ended up advancing by 3.2km, much of the ancient town that once stood there has been preserved.
"You lose yourself there, you can see everything," Angela says. "Bakeries, public bathrooms (latrines), homes, apartment blocks… street businesses, not too dissimilar to those of today."
A tour of Ostia Antica can show you much of the amenities and features of ancient Roman life – from its 1st-Century BCE theatre, to its forum, public baths and necropolis.
For Angela, Ostia Antica best preserves the "popolare" (working-class) soul of ancient Rome – one which its newer counterpart, the beach suburb Lido di Ostia, has carried on in modern form.
Ostia Antica is a roughly 30-minute drive from central Rome, and can be reached in around the same time by taking the Metromare commuter rail from the Porta S Paolo station.
BBC Travel's The SpeciaList is a series of guides to popular and emerging destinations around the world, as seen through the eyes of local experts and tastemakers.
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