Rome for first-timers – a ‘friend’s-eye’ guide (starting from La Casa al Colosseo)

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Arriving in Rome is like throwing open a window onto an endless panorama: that vast sky, distant domes, and the constant undertow of footsteps, scooters and voices that tell you one thing straight away, the city never really stops. A first visit often comes with the familiar anxiety of ‘There’s too much to see — where do I even begin?’, especially if you’ve only got a few days and you feel you ought to ‘do justice’ to two thousand years of history.

I’d do the opposite: don’t rush, don’t chase a checklist. Start from somewhere that lets you move on foot, easily, without breaking your rhythm. If you’re staying at La Casa al Colosseo, you’re already in the Rome everyone dreams of, with one rare advantage: you can experience it step by step, not transfer by transfer.

I’m not aiming to be exhaustive: in Rome you never are, not even if you stay a month. What I’m sharing here is mostly what you can meet by walking, with a few natural detours. The classic must-sees — the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Trevi, Piazza di Spagna — are there, of course, and if you want them you’ll do them. I keep them in the background, though: they often mean crowds, queues, noise. What truly changes a first time in Rome is discovering a city that feels rich without being overwhelming, a Rome where you can breathe, and actually see.

The Colosseum and Rome beneath your feet

Step outside and, within minutes, the Colosseum is right in front of you. It’s inevitable and it should be: it’s one of those places where you immediately grasp the scale of the city. But I’d make the first move downwards.

Right here you’ll find the Colosseo/Fori Imperiali station on Metro Line C, opened last December. Inside, there’s a small museum route designed as a kind of underground narrative of the city. What struck me most was how clearly they’ve made the layers visible: along the way they present discoveries including 28 Republican-era wells, as well as remains linked to a domus and a balneum.

When you surface again, you’re accompanied by that distinctly Roman feeling that there’s always another level beneath you.

Via dei Fori Imperiali: walking alongside time

From here the natural walk is along Via dei Fori Imperiali. The avenue links the Colosseum to Piazza Venezia, but the beauty isn’t really the arrival, it’s walking beside the ruins, with today’s life flowing above while yesterday’s traces remain there, within sight.

Photo by Adam (Pixabay)

You’ll come up alongside the Markets of Trajan, which I’ve written about in another piece; I’ll point you to that if you want a closer look at this extraordinary complex, with its multi-level buildings, arches and terraces.

At this point it’s only natural to slip into the Monti neighbourhood for a moment. It’s a detour that changes the atmosphere: cobblestones, short climbs, courtyards, tiny artisan shops. If you’re hungry, it’s the right place for a genuinely Roman pause, a proper slice of pizza al taglio, a supplì. If you’d rather slow down, sit in one of the small trattorias and order a carbonara the way it should be: eggs, guanciale, pecorino, black pepper. It’s a very concrete way to understand Rome, through its flavours.

Set off again. Just uphill, without much effort, you’ll reach the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli. Inside is Michelangelo’s Moses. A well-known anecdote circles around this sculpture: the story goes that Michelangelo, struck by the marble’s realism, said, ‘Why don’t you speak?’ We can’t prove it happened, but it’s exactly how Rome passes its stories along, mixing art and legend.

And then, a few steps away, there’s Vicolo Scellerato (also known as Salita dei Borgia). Today it’s a staircase between Via Cavour and the area around San Pietro in Vincoli, but the name reaches back to an older tradition: the tale of Tullia, daughter of King Servius Tullius, associated in Roman storytelling with a brutal episode said to have ‘stained’ that stretch of the city. It’s one of those places that, over centuries, has filled itself with versions and retellings.

Colle Oppio and the Domus Aurea: the Rome that sits behind things

From Monti you can loop back towards the Colosseum via Colle Oppio. Here Rome changes its tone: trees, space to breathe, and a park that, in places, opens onto direct views of the Colosseum and the Palatine.

Beneath this hill lies the Domus Aurea, Nero’s residence built after the fire of AD 64. In the valley where the Colosseum stands today there was once a stagnum, a sheet of water woven into the landscape of the Neronian complex. Under the Flavians that area was drained and transformed, and the amphitheatre was also a political gesture: returning public space to the city where an imperial domain had been.

San Clemente: understanding Rome vertically

Heading back towards the Colosseum, there’s San Clemente. From the outside it’s an understated fachade, and that’s precisely why the impact is all inside.

The visit is literally a descent through time. At street level you have the 12th-century basilica, with its apse mosaic and Cosmatesque floor. Then you go down to an older basilica (4th century), with early frescoes. Deeper still, Roman-era spaces: a domus and, at the lowest level, a mithraeum.

Down in the subterranean levels you can also hear water running. It’s an almost physical detail that reminds you Rome isn’t only stone and ruins, but also earth, aquifers and waterways that are still moving.

The Caelian Hill: Clivo di Scauro and the Roman Houses

From the Colosseum, if you want to shift towards a more contained Rome, the natural step is the Caelian Hill (Celio).
The Clivo di Scauro is an ancient ascent: it follows a route that, in large part, still keeps the imprint of the Roman road (clivus meaning ‘slope’).

Here you enter a different scale of the city: the Case Romane del Celio, beneath the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. It’s a complex of underground rooms showing successive transformations, private quarters, frescoes, changes of use,  up to the phase where some spaces are reinterpreted in a Christian key. It’s Rome from the inside: walls, passages, layers.

Head down along Via dei Cerchi and you’ll find yourself at the Circus Maximus, with the Palatine to the right and the Aventine ti the left: it’s a stretch that works beautifully on foot, without having to think too hard about where next. Then aim for the Tiber. Upstream along the river you’ll find to the left Tiber Island, turn to the right and you arrive in the Jewish Ghetto, where the streets narrow and the city becomes more ‘neighbourhood’ again.

Walk as far as the Portico of Octavia: a monumental remnant of ancient Rome that now sits there, embedded in everyday life. It’s also useful for getting your bearings, from that point the quarter opens into a few recognisable streets. If you stop for food, it makes sense to eat what the place has built over time: carciofi alla giudia, yes, but also dishes tied to the area’s cooking such as salt cod and traditional sweets (for instance a ricotta and sour cherry tart).

The Aventine towards evening: Sant’Alessio and the Orange Garden

When the light changes, I’d move up to the Aventine. The Janiculum is the most famous terrace, but it’s often the most crowded too. Here, instead, you get a quieter hill, greener, and a different way of looking at Rome.

A spot I often recommend is the area around Sant’Alessio: there’s a panoramic terrace and, nearby, views that draw your eye towards the Tiber. Then, with a short walk, you reach the Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci). A little further on is the keyhole at the Priory of the Knights of Malta: you look through and see St Peter’s dome framed perfectly by hedges.

Photo by Galen Crout

If you still have energy, head back down towards the river and cross one of the bridges; lean on the parapet and watch the water pass. It’s a simple, fitting way to end the day.

Rome doesn’t run out

This route can fit into a single day if you’ve got strong legs and a stubborn streak, but it works much better if you spread it out. A stretch in the morning, a long stop whenever you feel like it, and the rest the next day.

Leave room for what happens between one point and the next — an espresso taken standing at the bar, a drink from a nasone when you’re thirsty, a patch of shade that makes you change direction, a detail you notice by chance.

When you go home and someone asks, ‘So, what was Rome like?’, you probably won’t know where to start. Because Rome clings to you. In the end it’s not how many things you’ve seen, but how you moved through them. It’s a city that opens itself to people who don’t hurry and to those who return. Because the first time is never enough, but if you do it properly it becomes the reason you’ll want a second.