The great thing about the city centre of Rome is that it’s very easy to walk. As I previously wrote about, we spent a gorgeous day walking through Trastevere, we spent a day strolling around the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and Ancient Forum. On one of the other days, we strolled through the north east of the city centre and today I thought I would share our walking itinerary.
I think if you have limited time in Rome, this is a great way of spending a half day (I believe we got on our way around 11 or noon) as we saw so many sights and definitely walked off all the calories we ate along the way! It’s about 7km, but it’s easily doable, even at a snail’s pace.
A walking itinerary for a day in Rome
We were staying near the Vatican so lets start our itinerary from there. As you will see on the map below, we left from the Piazza San Pietro and walked the Via della Conciliazone toward the Castel Sant’ Angelo.
We stopped to admire the many bridges and the dramatic sky. I think I have a photo of the castle somewhere but it wasn’t that beautiful – just big and round. As we were taking photos, the busker who was playing violin just opposite us started playing our song. We aren’t that lovey dovey of a couple but truthfully being on the side of the Tiber admiring the gorgeous city of Rome and having our song played by a violinist was one of the most romantic moments ever. Anyways, moving on…
We crossed the Ponte Umberto I to walk toward Piazza Navona. We made a quick pit stop when I spotted some cannolis and just had to buy some! We ate them sitting at a fountain at the Piazza. I love piazzas they remind me so much of South America – of the effervescent life that always surround them. They are always full of locals, tourists, good cafes, terraces and just joy of life…and selfie sticks on this occasion!
We dashed toward the east to arrive right at the Pantheon. This wasn’t really on my list but it was amazing to see it. We didn’t go in because we wanted to keep walking and seeing more, but it was an amazing structure!
After walking in circle a little bit, we found our way to the Trevi Fountain….which was very anti-climatically closed. Thankfully they were working on the bottom of the fountain so we got some nice views of the structure (photo below). We took another pit stop here as we bought gelato and the Brit bought some very posh leather shoes.
By accident we passed by the Palazzo del Quirinale – which was an impressive building and we got a new little view over the city. From there we found our way toward Piazza Barberini. I loved that getting lost meant we discovered more.
On from there we arrived at the top of the Spanish Steps …which were also closed. Talk about timing right? I wasn’t too adamant on anything so we happily took some photos from the top and went on our way toward Villa Borghese.
We had a gorgeous view from the belvedere and we sat quietly in the park – especially after hours of walking. Villa Borghese itself could have taken us hours to walk through and if I went back to Rome I would definitely make it happen.
We then came down onto Piazza del Popolo and started making our way home. We of course stopped on the way to have some delicious pizza/calzone.
As we were making our way home, near the Museo del’Ara Pacis, we saw a lot people gathered by a church and my nosy self wanted to stop to see what was happening. We got a glimpse of a man who looked like the Pope, which seemed very random. But when we got home we googled it and realised the Pope was indeed at that church that afternoon! So yeah that’s the story of how we saw the Pope by accident!
We then strolled back to the Vatican and back to our Airbnb to have a quiet night in and a much deserved rest after such a big day of walking and discovering.
Did you see any of these sights in Rome? What’s your favourite way of discovering a new city?xx
