Eight places most first-timers walk past: three layers of buried churches at San Clemente, the Capuchin bone crypt, Borromini's trick colonnade at Palazzo Spada, Roman houses under Palazzo Valentini, the Coppedè quarter, Keats's grave and Roman statues in a power station.
If you have time for one, make it the Basilica of San Clemente, five minutes from the Colosseum: a 12th-century church on top of a 4th-century church on top of Roman buildings and a temple of Mithras, with an underground stream you can hear (€10 for the excavations, booked online). The Capuchin Crypt and Palazzo Spada are the next two: one decorated with bones, the other with a short colonnade, about 9 metres deep, that looks many times longer.
There are only eight, and none of them is the Trevi Fountain or Trastevere: these are real places most first-time visitors miss, each with a reason to go. Six are in or near the centre; the Coppedè district and Centrale Montemartini need a tram or Metro ride. For the big sights, see the best things to do in Rome; for the underground world on the Appian Way, our catacombs guide; and for a base, where to stay in Rome.
Underground Rome. The Basilica of San Clemente is the one to see if you see only one. At street level is a 12th-century church with a gold apse mosaic. Go down a level and you're in the 4th-century church it was built on, with faded frescoes. Go down again and you're in Roman buildings from the 1st century, including a small temple to the god Mithras, with water running somewhere in the dark below. It's five minutes from the Colosseum, and it's also on our things to do list, because nothing else in Rome shows the city's layers so clearly.
Price: upper church free; excavations €10 (€5 for students under 26), booked online, which is required. Open: Monday to Saturday 9am-12.30pm and 2pm-6pm; Sundays and holidays noon-6pm. Allow: about an hour. Metro: Colosseo (line B).
Online booking is required for the excavations, and there are no guided tours from the basilica itself. Metro: Colosseo (line B), five minutes' walk.
The Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini are the remains of aristocratic Roman houses under a palace beside Trajan's Column, with mosaic floors, painted walls and baths, seen from glass walkways while projections rebuild the rooms around you. The visit is a set-time guided tour, and the longer version adds a projection on Trajan's Column.
Price: €15, €9 reduced, plus €1.50 to book. Open: daily except Tuesdays, 10am-6pm in winter, last tour 4.30pm. Allow: an hour, or 1.5 hours with the column. Getting there: by Piazza Venezia, about 12 minutes' walk from Colosseo Metro (line B). Book by the day before.
Booking by the day before is recommended; arrive at the ticket office 15 minutes before your slot. Metro: Colosseo (line B), about 12 minutes' walk.
Vicus Caprarius, the 'City of Water', is two minutes from the Trevi Fountain and a world away from its crowds: the remains of an imperial-era house and a water tank of the Acqua Vergine, the same aqueduct that feeds the fountain, found under an old cinema. It's small and cheap, and the best quick escape in the centre. (It's also on our Trevi Fountain guide.)
Price: €4, under-14s free. Open: Tuesday to Sunday 11am-5pm; closed Mondays. Allow: 30-45 minutes. Booking is required at weekends.
Booking is required at weekends and on public holidays and recommended on weekdays, by phone or WhatsApp on +39 339 7786192 (Tuesday to Sunday, 10am-4pm). About two minutes' walk from the fountain.
Strange and beautiful. The Capuchin Crypt, under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione on Via Veneto, is a row of small chapels decorated with the bones of Capuchin friars: skulls stacked into arches, hip bones into patterns, vertebrae into chandeliers. It's macabre and oddly peaceful, and the museum before it explains why the friars did it. Not for young children or the squeamish.
Price: €10, €6.50 reduced, with the audio guide; €1.50 extra online. Open: daily 9.30am-1.30pm and 2.30pm-6.30pm. Allow: under an hour. Metro: Barberini (line A).
Large bags go in the free left-luggage area. Metro: Barberini (line A), a few minutes' walk up Via Veneto.
Galleria Spada is a small 17th-century cardinal's picture gallery in a palace near Campo de' Fiori, and most people come for one thing in its courtyard: Borromini's Prospettiva, a colonnade built in 1653 that looks like a long gallery with a life-size statue at the end. It's actually only a few metres deep, and the statue is small. The trick is all in the shrinking columns and the rising floor.
Price: check the gallery's official site (galleriaspada.cultura.gov.it), which was unreachable on 3 November 2026; free on the first Sunday of the month. Open: daily except Tuesdays 8.30am-7.30pm, last entry 7pm. Allow: under an hour. Getting there: three minutes' walk from Campo de' Fiori.
No booking or groups on the free first Sunday. About three minutes' walk from Campo de' Fiori; no Metro nearby.
Centrale Montemartini is Rome's first public power station, from 1912, with Roman statues from the Capitoline collections standing between the old diesel engines and turbines. White marble gods against black machinery: few museums anywhere look like it, and it's rarely busy.
Price: €11 for non-residents (€14.50 with the Moda in luce exhibition, to 15 November 2026). Open: Tuesday to Sunday 9am-7pm; closed Mondays. Allow: an hour. Metro: Garbatella (line B), about 10 minutes' walk.
Metro: Garbatella (line B), about 10 minutes' walk; or Piramide (line B), about 20 minutes.
The Non-Catholic Cemetery, under the walls by the Pyramid of Cestius, is one of the most beautiful gardens in Rome: cypresses, cats and the graves of foreigners who died here since the 18th century. The poet John Keats is buried in the old part, under a stone that doesn't give his name; the Italian writer Antonio Gramsci is here too. Combine it with Testaccio for lunch; our Rome markets guide covers Testaccio Market.
Price: no ticket; the cemetery asks for a voluntary €5. Open: Monday to Saturday 9am-5pm; Sundays and most holidays 9am-1pm. Allow: 45 minutes. Metro: Piramide (line B).
Keats's grave is in the old part of the cemetery, by the Pyramid of Cestius. Metro: Piramide (line B).
Out of the centre. The Coppedè district is a few streets of Rome nobody expects: 26 small palaces and 17 villas designed by the architect Gino Coppedè in the 1910s and 1920s, a mix of Art Nouveau, medieval and fairy-tale styles, with a giant arch and chandelier at the entrance. At its heart, Piazza Mincio has the Fountain of the Frogs; local legend says the Beatles jumped in it in 1965.
Price: free. Allow: 30 minutes. Getting there: tram 3 or 19 to Piazza Buenos Aires, then a few minutes' walk. Combine it with the Villa Borghese park, about 20-25 minutes' walk west.
Enter under the big arch on Via Tagliamento. Tram 3 or 19 to Piazza Buenos Aires, a few minutes' walk.
History: San Clemente's three levels.
Something unforgettable: the Capuchin Crypt.
A two-minute marvel: Borromini's Prospettiva at Galleria Spada.
Free: the Coppedè district, and the Non-Catholic Cemetery for a voluntary €5.
Book the underground sites. San Clemente's excavations need an online booking, Palazzo Valentini is guided at set times, and Vicus Caprarius needs booking at weekends.
Mind the closing days. Palazzo Valentini and Galleria Spada close on Tuesdays, Centrale Montemartini and Vicus Caprarius on Mondays.
Lunch breaks. The Capuchin Crypt and San Clemente close at lunchtime. Plan mornings or afternoons, not noon.
Under the city: the catacombs on the Appian Way are the other big underground visit; see our catacombs and Appian Way guide.
Getting around: Colosseo, Barberini, Piramide and Garbatella are all on the Metro (the subway); see getting around Rome.
For the classics: the best things to do in Rome and the 3-day Rome itinerary.
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