Ancient Rome, outside Rome
The Forum has a queue. The emperor's own estate at Tivoli, and an entire Roman port at Ostia, mostly do not.
40 days out15 placesthe nearest is in Rome itself
The single best decision a visitor to Rome can make on day three is to go and look at ancient Rome somewhere other than in the middle of Rome. The sites outside the city are larger, emptier and in several cases better preserved, because nobody built a medieval town on top of them.
Ostia Antica is a whole port: streets, blocks of flats, bars with the counters still in them, a theatre, and a set of mosaic floors you walk over. It is a short drive from the centre and on most days you can have a street to yourself.
Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli is not a villa at all but an imperial town, built by an emperor who had travelled the empire and wanted pieces of it at home. Then there is the Appian Way with its tombs and its aqueducts running across open fields, Tusculum on its ridge above the Castelli, and the Villa dei Quintili out on the via Appia Nuova.
The practical advantage is not only the queue. These sites are big and they are flat, which means you walk through a Roman town at the pace you choose instead of shuffling behind a group. At Ostia you can sit down in a bar with the marble counter still in place. At Hadrian's Villa you can lose the rest of your party for twenty minutes without trying.
Take a guide at Hadrian's Villa and take nothing at Ostia. That is the honest rule. The villa is a set of foundations that make no sense at all without somebody to say what stood on them; Ostia is a street plan you read by walking it, and the pleasure is discovering the bakery yourself. Cards that include a licensed guide say so.
The Appian Way is the third kind, and the best version of it is on wheels. The first miles out of the city are basalt and closed to traffic in long stretches, with tombs along both sides and the aqueduct arches marching across the fields beside it. On a bike you cover the good part in a morning; on foot you cover a third of it.
Summer is the one real constraint. None of these have shade to speak of and all of them are stone. Go at opening or go late in the afternoon, take more water than you think, and treat the middle of the day as somebody else's problem.
The road the Romans measured the rest of the world from, with its tombs along it and the aqueduct arches marching across the fields beside it. Technically inside Rome, and entirely unlike it.
Best fit for this section first, then whatever you can book today. Closest to Rome breaks a tie. Never by who pays us.
On two wheelsThree hours on an e-bike, out through the aqueducts and along the Appia Antica.
€8 per person
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On horsebackA one-hour riding lesson at the Cavalieri Appia Antica school, inside the Appia Antica Regional Park.
A sports club — you join them for the day
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On horsebackGuided horseback rides and excursions inside the Appia Antica Regional Park, led by Sandro, an equestrian guide with thirty years of experience.
A sports club — you join them for the day
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On two wheelsA four-hour small-group e-bike tour, 30 km, starting from Via dei Cerchi 59 in front of the Circus Maximus, the closest departure point to the Appian Way by bike lane.
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On two wheelsA four-hour guided ride on the Via Appia Antica, which the operator notes is almost entirely closed to traffic on Sundays, past the Baths of Caracalla, Porta San Sebastiano, the…
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On two wheelsA four-hour guided e-bike tour that leaves the city centre through the Aurelian Walls and rides the 2300-year-old basalt paving of the Appian Way past the Circus of Maxentius, t…
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On two wheelsThe six-hour version of the same 27 km Appian Way route, with a guided visit inside the Catacombs of St Callixtus (St Sebastian on Wednesdays) and a final stop at the Baths of C…
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On horsebackHalf a day on horseback from a ranch inside the coastal nature reserve on the edge of Rome.
A sports club — you join them for the day
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On two wheelsBike rental at a cafe that sits directly on the basalt paving of the Via Appia Antica, at number 175.
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On two wheelsThe cafe organises guided tours inside the Appia Antica park, by bicycle or on foot, with guides in several languages.
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With your handsA working farm inside Rome, ten minutes from the Appia Antica park, with hectares of cultivated land and farm animals.
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On horsebackA trial session of Natural Horsemanship with the instructors of Ciampacavallo, a social association based inside the Appia Antica Regional Park since 2000.
A sports club — you join them for the day
See the dayGuided visits, e-bike routes, rides through the ruins and straightforward entries. Sorted by how close they are to Rome.
Closest to Rome first. Never by who pays us.
On two wheelsE-bike rental from a shop at Via dei Cerchi 59, in front of the Circus Maximus.
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On the trailThe archaeological area of the Latin city of Tusculum, on the ridge above Frascati.
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With your handsA tasting devoted to three wineries of the Castelli Romani, served with artisan focaccia, mixed cheeses and cured meats, on a terrace looking over Lake Albano.
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With your handsFour day-long outings run in English by a small local company: a street-food stroll through Frascati, Nemi or Ariccia ending in a fraschetta; a private tasting room in one of th…
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On two wheelsThe train tickets are in the price. You ride the Castelli, Castel Gandolfo to Nemi.
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With your handsThe visit starts at the Museo Tuscolano in Frascati among the finds from ancient Tusculum, moves to the Museo del Vino at Monte Porzio Catone which traces how Frascati wine has …
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With your handsAn organic estate on the hills at Frascati working the native Frascati DOCG grapes — Malvasia del Lazio, Greco Bianco, Bombino.
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On the trailA guided walk through Frascati that begins in the Scuderie Aldobrandini — the Aldobrandini stables converted by the architect Massimiliano Fuksas into the Museo Tuscolano — then…
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On two wheelsA 25 km e-bike route from Frascati climbing to the archaeological park of Tusculum through woods, ridges and hairpins, with views over Rome and the hill towns, and returning to …
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On the trailA single combined ticket covering the Museo Tuscolano in the Scuderie Aldobrandini at Frascati, Villa Mondragone — the largest of the Tuscolan villas — the archaeological park o…
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With your handsThe estate offers a visit that covers the vineyards, the production philosophy and the winemaking, and can be combined with the secrets of Roman cooking.
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On two wheelsAn eight-hour private e-bike day out of Rome: Caffarella park, the Park of the Aqueducts, then a 30-minute train ride from Capannelle station up to the Castelli Romani.
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On the trailThe civic museums of Albano Laziale and the town's monument circuit can be visited on your own without booking, for individuals or groups of up to ten.
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In the old stonesA Romanesque sanctuary at Albano Laziale.
Free — nothing to pay
Just turn up
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On the trailA guided walk that starts in Piazza di Corte, crosses the whole old town and follows the sixteenth mile of the Appian Way through the Valle Ariccia, coming back up by the modern…
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On the trailThe local archaeology association guides five itineraries across the ancient nemus Aricinum: Ariccia's old town with the Kuntze wall paintings at the Locanda Martorelli and the …
See the dayThe people the Romans took this country from, and whose tombs are the best-preserved thing on it. Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Norchia, Sutri.
Best fit for this section first, then whatever you can book today. Closest to Rome breaks a tie. Never by who pays us.
Under the groundTurn up, pay at the door, and climb down an Etruscan well and its caves.
€5 per person
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With your handsA working winery at Bardano, on the hills facing Orvieto, in a farmstead that belonged to the Templars.
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On horsebackA western-riding centre inside the 15,000-hectare park of Veio, on the Cassia just north of Rome at Isola Farnese, that makes trail riding its main business rather than a sideline.
A sports club — you join them for the day
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On the trailGuided walk through the tumulus tombs of the Banditaccia, carved to reproduce the inside of Etruscan houses, and along the Via degli Inferi, the sunken road that led to the buri…
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On the trailGuided visit to the tumulus tombs of the Banditaccia and to the Tomb of the Reliefs, carved in the fourth century BC with stucco copies of household objects, plus the museum hol…
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Off roadFive hours in total: three on a quad or dune buggy across the Cerveteri countryside to the Banditaccia Etruscan necropolis, then two hours visiting the tombs of the UNESCO site.
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Off roadA guided hour on a quad or a dune buggy through the countryside of Cerveteri, along farm roads between olive groves and vineyards as far as the hilltop hamlet of Ceri, then back…
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With your handsGuided visit and narrated route through a reconstructed Etruscan village, followed by workshops: a simulated dig, clay working, fresco painting and grain grinding, and a tasting…
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On the trailGuided visit to the amphitheatre carved whole out of the tufa rock, to the Mithraeum later turned into a church, and to the Etruscan and Roman rock tombs along the Via Francigena.
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Under the groundThe tourist office of Orte runs guided descents into the tunnels under the old town: the Etruscan-Roman aqueduct, the medieval dovecote and the snow well, and on the third weeke…
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On the trailSix-hour guided walk in the Treja gorge to the archaeological remains of ancient Narce, entering a chamber tomb with its sarcophagi, with views over Monte Soratte, and ending in…
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On the trailA half-day guided visit to the Monterozzi necropolis, a UNESCO site, and to the National Archaeological Museum in the old town.
See the dayDriving time from the middle of Rome, on the road network and without traffic. It tells you whether the day stands up; it is not a timetable.
Getting there
No parking to find, no wrong turns, and you leave when the day is done.
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See prices on Welcome PickupsOstia Antica if you want a whole town, Hadrian's Villa if you want the emperor's own. If you have a day, either of them beats a third morning in the centre.
It is different and it is a great deal closer. Pompeii is a town caught in a single moment; Ostia is a town that emptied slowly, and it is far less crowded. For a day trip from Rome, Ostia wins on every practical measure.
Not to enjoy it, but a good one roughly doubles what you take away, particularly at Hadrian's Villa where the ruins are hard to read. Cards that include a licensed guide say so.
Half a day each, honestly done, and Hadrian's Villa plus Villa d'Este is a full one. The card gives the length where the operator publishes it.
Ostia Antica, a complete Roman port half an hour from the centre; Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, an imperial estate the size of a town; the Appian Way with its tombs and the aqueduct park beside it; Tusculum on the ridge above the Castelli; and Sutri's amphitheatre, which is cut down into the rock rather than built up.
It is one of the few sites on this site that is genuinely easy without a car — there is a line from the city and the entrance is by the station. Where an operator says they can be reached without a car, their activity page says so.
Yes, and it is the standard Tivoli day: the villa in the morning, lunch in the town, the water garden in the afternoon. It is a long day and a good one. Adding Villa Gregoriana's gorge as well is one thing too many for most people.
Most of the major ones charge, and several towns sell a single ticket covering a museum and a site together. The Appian Way itself and much of the aqueduct park are open country you walk into. Where we have verified a price it is on the card with the date we read it.
Ostia, because it is a town rather than a ruin — streets, stairs, a theatre you can climb, mosaic floors you walk over, and a pine wood to eat lunch in. Hadrian's Villa asks more imagination and gives less back at that age.
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