Two hours out
Two hours is where Lazio stops being the outskirts of Rome and becomes somewhere else entirely — Tuscany, Umbria, the mountains, the far coast.
28 days out10 placesthe nearest is a 1 h 16 drive from Rome
This is the distance at which people hesitate, and they are usually wrong to. Two hours of driving from Rome puts you in the Maremma with its long empty beaches and its Etruscan roads cut deep into the rock, in Umbria under a waterfall, on a hilltop town standing alone above a valley of clay, or in mountains with snow on them.
The rule for this distance is simple: leave early and make it the whole day. Two hours out and two hours back is not a problem if the middle of the day is six hours long. It becomes a problem when you leave at eleven.
It is also the distance where having somebody else drive changes the day most. Nobody enjoys the last hour of a long drive home after a day in the sun.
What two hours buys you is a change of landscape rather than a change of scene. At thirty minutes you are in Rome's hills; at an hour you are in its countryside; at two you are in the Maremma, in Umbria, in the high Apennines or on the far southern coast, and nothing around you looks Roman any more. That is the whole argument for the extra hour.
The way to make it work is one destination, not two. Two hours out, one place, six hours there, two hours back — that is a good day. Two hours out, three places forty minutes apart, and you have bought a driving tour with three car parks in it. The grids below are sorted by drive time so you can see honestly what you are committing to.
It is also the distance where the shape of the return journey starts to matter. The main roads out of Rome are fast and well surfaced; the last stretches in the hills are narrow and unlit. If the day involves wine, a long walk or small children, somebody else driving the way home is worth more at this distance than at any other.
The far side of the Tuscia, the Rieti valley and the Sabina hills. Still a comfortable day if you start in the morning — Bomarzo's monster park, the villages above Roccantica, the country around Vetralla. Close enough that a late return is not a problem.
Closest to Rome first. Never by who pays us.
With your handsA cooking class at Montasola on the classic Roman dishes: amatriciana, cacio e pepe and saltimbocca.
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With your handsA workshop at Montasola making scented lavender sachets with natural cotton, linen and hemp fabrics.
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On the trailGuided visit to the sixteenth-century Sacro Bosco, a wooded park filled with basalt sculptures of mythological animals, gods and monsters.
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On the trailTwo-hour guided reading of the sixteenth-century Sacro Bosco: the sculptures carved out of the living peperino rock are treated as the stages of an initiatory route, from the Th…
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On the trailCamillo Castellani is a certified environmental hiking guide working out of Montefiascone with a catalogue of twenty-five booked walks across the Tuscia, graded from tourist to …
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In the old stonesA Renaissance church at Bomarzo.
Free — nothing to pay
Just turn up
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With your handsA working artisan mill on the old Via Cassia, 68 km from Rome and 18 from Viterbo, below the medieval walls of Vetralla.
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On the trailWalk to the Etruscan temple-tombs cut into the walls of a canyon, the ruins of the medieval castle and the church of San Pietro, crossing gorges and fording the river.
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On the trailThe sixteenth-century Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo, with more than thirty colossal figures carved out of the local peperino stone.
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With your handsA ten-hour day out of Rome with a private driver: your choice between Caprarola with the Farnese palace or Sutri with the Roman amphitheatre and Etruscan necropolis, then an oli…
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With your handsA visit to an organic estate at Roccantica with a tasting of the farm's extra virgin olive oil or of natural wines, served with an antipasto of local cheeses, cured meats and or…
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With your handsA hands-on workshop making pasta, pizza and bread from ancient grain flours at a farmhouse in Roccantica, run by the farm's agrichef.
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With your handsPicking aromatic herbs on the farm with an explanation of their uses, then grinding them into flavoured salts with mortar and pestle.
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On the trailA visit to a Cistercian abbey at Veroli.
See the dayCivita di Bagnoregio on its pinnacle, Montefiascone above Lake Bolsena, the Maremma at Capalbio, the high sanctuaries above Vallepietra, and the Stiffe caves over the Abruzzo border. This is where you stop recognising anything as Roman, and it is worth the early start it asks for.
Closest to Rome first. Never by who pays us.
On the trailNine kilometres linking the three villages that face each other across the badlands valley, with a stop at the Museo Naturalistico dei Calanchi.
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On the trailTen kilometres, 550 metres of climb, graded E+: the badlands below Civita.
Booked by phone
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In the old stonesA Renaissance basilica at Montefiascone, built by Michele Sanmicheli.
Free — nothing to pay
Just turn up
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On the trailThree-hour guided visit including the walk over the footbridge, the church of San Donato with its Renaissance works, the medieval lanes and the geological setting of the Valle d…
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On the trailGuided visit to the village on the tufa spur: the church of San Donato with its wooden crucifix, Palazzo Alemanni, the geological museum and the clay pinnacles of the surroundin…
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On the trailA guided visit to the tufa village of Civita di Bagnoregio, reached by a 300-metre footbridge, including the church of San Donato with its rare wooden crucifix and Palazzo Alema…
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On the trailA sculpture garden of monumental tarot figures covered in mirror and ceramic, built by Niki de Saint Phalle on a hillside near the Tuscan coast.
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With your handsThe town's co-operative winery runs guided tastings of its own wines at its shop on Via Grilli, paired with local food products.
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With your handsTasting inside the cellar of a Montefiascone estate, with the winery's award-winning wines served alongside regional cheeses and cured meats.
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In the old stonesTown walls at Capalbio.
Free — nothing to pay
Just turn up — open air, any hour
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On the trailThe papal fortress above Montefiascone, overlooking Lake Bolsena.
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Under the groundA guided walk into an active resurgence cave where a river runs, with waterfalls and pools along the route.
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On the trailA ring hike starting at the car park of the Santissima Trinità sanctuary above Vallepietra, along the Alta Via del Parco and part of the Frassati path, crossing the karst depres…
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In the old stonesA sanctuary at Vallepietra.
Free — nothing to pay
Just turn up
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
The day stays yours: you leave when you want, stop where you want, and come back when the light goes.
Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Localrent, and anything about that booking goes through them.
See prices on LocalrentNo parking to find, no wrong turns, and you leave when the day is done.
Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Welcome Pickups, and anything about that booking goes through them.
See prices on Welcome PickupsNot if you treat it as a full day rather than an afternoon. Leave by eight, and you have six or seven hours at the other end. The people who come back saying it was too far are almost always the ones who left at midday.
At this distance it is a fair question, and for the Maremma and Umbria the answer is often yes. Two days lets you see the country between the towns rather than the road.
The main roads are fine and well surfaced. The small roads in the hills are narrow and unlit, which is one of the reasons a driver is worth considering for the long days.
The Maremma coast and its Etruscan country, Umbria at Orvieto and the Nera valley, Civita di Bagnoregio, Lake Bolsena and the far Tuscia, the mountains above Rieti and Subiaco, and the southern coast at Sperlonga and Gaeta. The grids above are what you can actually book in each direction.
Some destinations at this distance are on lines out of Rome, and where an operator has told us they can be reached without a car, their activity page says so. But at two hours the useful part of the day is short, and a car or a driver is usually what makes the difference between a day out and a day travelling.
Eight, if the drive is two hours. That puts you there before the middle of the day, gives you six or seven hours, and gets you home before the roads back into the city thicken. Leaving at eleven is what makes people conclude that two hours is too far.
For the Maremma and for Umbria, often yes — the evening in a small Italian town is when it comes alive, and you get the morning light as well. There is a separate page on this site for the directions that repay the night.
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