A second Rome weekend is better than the first, because everything requiring a booked slot has already been seen. What is left is mostly free and mostly empty.
Ostia Antica
Forty minutes by metro and regional train — Rome's port city, with streets, warehouses, apartment blocks, a theatre and mosaic floors standing to considerable height.
It was abandoned gradually rather than buried suddenly, so it lacks Pompeii's frozen quality. It also has a small fraction of the visitors, and you can walk it nearly alone.
Half a day, and the single biggest gap between quality and visitor numbers in the Roman area.
The Appian Way
The ancient road, surviving with its original basalt paving in stretches, lined with tombs and monuments.
Hire a bicycle at the park entrance — the interesting stretch runs several kilometres and walking it is slow.
The section beyond the catacombs is closed to most traffic on Sundays, which is when to go.
The catacombs along it — San Callisto, San Sebastiano — are guided and ticketed.
The Baths of Caracalla
A third-century imperial complex that held 1,600 bathers, with walls still standing thirty metres high.
Vast, largely empty, and fifteen minutes' walk from the Colosseum's queue.
The Aventine
The keyhole in the Knights of Malta door, through which St Peter's dome appears framed by a hedge-lined avenue. Free, thirty seconds.
The Orange Garden next to it, with a view over the city and almost nobody in it.
Santa Sabina, a fifth-century basilica with fifth-century carved wooden doors.
Neighbourhoods
Testaccio — the food quarter, built around Monte Testaccio, an artificial hill made entirely of broken Roman amphorae. Where the city's traditional cooking is, and a fraction of the centre's prices.
Garbatella — a 1920s garden-city district with courtyards, on the metro.
Coppedè — a small district of fantastical 1920s architecture unlike anything else in Rome.
The Jewish Ghetto — one of Europe's oldest, with its own cooking. The fried artichokes are the dish.
The churches nobody queues for
San Clemente — three stacked levels, twelfth-century church over fourth-century church over first-century Roman house with a Mithraic temple.
Santa Maria Maggiore — fifth-century mosaics.
San Pietro in Vincoli — Michelangelo's Moses.
Santa Prassede, near Santa Maria Maggiore, with a chapel of Byzantine mosaics that most people walk past entirely.
Day trips beyond Ostia
| Destination | Time | What |
|---|---|---|
| Tivoli | 1h | Villa d'Este fountains, Hadrian's Villa |
| Orvieto | 1h15 train | Hill town, striped cathedral |
| Cerveteri | 1h | Etruscan tombs |
| Castelli Romani | 45min | Hill towns, lakes, wine |
Practical
Nothing here needs booking, which is what makes a second visit relaxing.
Ostia and the Baths of Caracalla have no shade — morning or late afternoon in summer.
Water from the 2,500 nasoni street fountains.