Rome off the postcard: a keyhole and a cannon at noon
Ten things Rome doesn't put on postcards — a keyhole on the Aventine, a cannon at noon, a museum in a power station for €11 and a church with three floors underneath.
- Free
- The keyhole
- Ticketed
- Centrale Montemartini €11
- On Sundays
- Via Appia Antica closed to traffic
Rome has too many famous things for anyone to reach the less famous ones — which are often better, with no queue and no ticket. This is a list with addresses, hours and prices, not adjectives.
The order is geographic as far as possible: the Aventine and Testaccio go together in one afternoon, the Gianicolo before noon, Coppedè and Via Appia want half a day each.
The keyhole on the Aventine
Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta 3, the green gate of the Priory of the Knights of Malta. Through the keyhole: a garden, a tunnel of box hedge and at the far end, dead centre, the dome of St Peter's — three states in one look (the Order of Malta, Italy, the Vatican). Free, always accessible, a queue of ten to thirty people in the afternoon; before nine in the morning, nobody. Phones struggle to catch the dome — look with your eyes, take the photo later from the Orange Garden a hundred metres downhill, same view without the keyhole and with benches. While you are there: Santa Sabina, a 5th-century basilica with wooden doors from the same era, right beside the garden.
The Gianicolo cannon, every day at noon
Since 1904 a cannon has been fired at exactly 12:00 from the terrace below the Garibaldi monument on the Gianicolo, so that every church in the city can synchronise its midday bells. Soldiers wheel it out of a niche under the terrace a few minutes early, twenty or so people gather, it goes off, and the pigeons lift off from all over Trastevere. Free. To get up: bus 115 or 870, or on foot from Trastevere up Via Garibaldi, 15 minutes, past the Acqua Paola fountain, which is reason enough to climb. The terrace view runs from the Vatican to the Alban Hills; afterwards walk down through Villa Sciarra or back into Trastevere.
The Coppedè quarter
Quartiere Coppedè, around Piazza Mincio, in the north of the city between Via Salaria and Via Nomentana: some twenty buildings designed by the architect Gino Coppedè in 1915–1927, mixing Art Nouveau, medieval, Baroque and things he invented — a chandelier hanging under the entrance arch, the Fountain of the Frogs on the square, the 'Villa of the Fairies' with bees and spiders on its facade. All of it is residential and seen from the street, free, in half an hour. Tram 3 or 19 to the Buenos Aires stop, then two minutes on foot; or bus 63 from Piazza Venezia. Morning light on the facades is best. There is no café and no souvenir shop — that is the whole point.
Centrale Montemartini
Via Ostiense 106, a ten-minute walk from metro B Piramide or Garbatella. Rome's first power station, from 1912, where ancient statues from the Capitoline Museums stand between diesel engines and turbines — marble goddesses in front of six-metre machines. Entry €11 (online +€1), closed Mondays, and nearly always empty: on a Saturday afternoon you share the hall with the guard. Pairs with Testaccio across the road and the Non-Catholic Cemetery. If you have a Capitoline Museums ticket, check the combined one — it is often cheaper than two singles.
The Non-Catholic Cemetery, Via Caio Cestio 6
Beside the Pyramid of Cestius and the Aurelian wall, the cemetery for non-Catholic foreigners since the 18th century: Keats (no name on the stone, by his own wish), Shelley, Gramsci, and the city's finest sculpture of grief, the Angel of Grief. Cypresses, cats, a silence Rome has nowhere else. Mon–Sat 9–17, Sundays and holidays 9–13; entry is free but a €5 contribution is requested and worth giving — the cemetery runs on it. Metro B Piramide is at the gate.
Via Appia Antica on a Sunday
Rome's first road, with its original basalt paving and tombs along the verge, is closed to cars on Sundays from the park centre onwards and becomes a promenade and cycle path. Bus 118 from Circo Massimo or 218 from San Giovanni to the information point at number 58–60, where bikes are hired: €16 a day for an ordinary one, €32 electric, helmet and map included. Ride out to the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella and beyond, where the road turns to fields and quiet; the catacombs of San Callisto and San Sebastiano are on the way, guided, about €10. On weekdays it is dangerous — cars drive over two-thousand-year-old paving as if it were a motorway.
San Clemente — three floors of history
Piazza San Clemente, five minutes from the Colosseum towards the Lateran. On top, a 12th-century basilica with an apse mosaic (free); beneath it, a 4th-century church with frescoes; beneath that, a 1st-century Roman house and a temple of Mithras, with an underground stream you hear before you see. Excavations €10, weekdays 9–12:30 and 14–18, Sundays 12–18, with online booking because daily numbers are capped. An hour, no crowd, and a better explanation of how Rome is layered than any museum.
Galleria Sciarra and the fake dome of Sant'Ignazio
Two things each two minutes from Trevi, both free. Galleria Sciarra, Via Marco Minghetti 10: a passage between office buildings from 1888, with a glass roof and four storeys of Art Nouveau frescoes by Giuseppe Cellini — you walk in as a pedestrian, Mon–Fri 9–20, closed at weekends. Sant'Ignazio, Piazza di Sant'Ignazio: a church that ran out of money for a dome, so in 1685 Andrea Pozzo painted one on a flat canvas; stand on the marble disc in the middle of the nave and you see a dome, step two metres aside and it collapses into perspective. The mirror on wheels in the nave is there so you don't have to crane your neck.
Testaccio market
Nuovo Mercato di Testaccio, the block between Via Galvani and Via Alessandro Volta: a covered market of a hundred or so stalls where, alongside the fruit and fish, there are cooked-food counters — sandwiches filled with Roman dishes for €5–7, pasta on a plate, pizza al taglio, and at the edges shoes and fabric. Open from morning to early afternoon, Monday to Saturday, closed Sundays; best before 13:00, while everything is still there. The cheapest good lunch in the city and the place to see how Rome eats when nobody is watching.
Water, steps, night — three rules
Nasoni: over two thousand cast-iron fountains running aqueduct water, free; block the spout with a finger and the water shoots up through the hole on top of the pipe — that is how you drink. The Waidy WOW app (from Acea, the city water company) maps them all and tells you which is out of order. The Spanish Steps: since 2019 sitting is banned, the municipal police whistle and the fine runs up to €250 — the steps are for climbing and photographing, not sitting. The Colosseum at night: in summer the park runs evening visits on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 20:00 to 23:15, with the arena, underground and a guide, about €50 per person (a €24 ticket plus a €26 guided tour); tickets are sold only on the official site, seven days ahead. If it overlaps with your stay, it is the only way to see the Colosseum without three thousand other people.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Is the Aventine keyhole free?
Yes, and always accessible — the gate is at Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta 3. In the afternoon there is a queue of ten to thirty people; before nine in the morning, nobody. The Orange Garden next door has the same view, with benches.
When is Via Appia Antica closed to traffic?
On Sundays, from the park centre onwards. That is when it is safe for bikes (€16 a day at number 58–60) and walkers; on weekdays cars use it normally and walking is not pleasant.
What is the fine for sitting on the Spanish Steps?
Up to €250 under the 2019 city ordinance; the police usually whistle a warning first. The same rule covers eating and drinking on the steps and beside the fountains.
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