Budget · 12-hour walk · Rome
Rome in a day: the Appian Way to Testaccio
The pope's cathedral and the Holy Stairs, the Baths of Caracalla, the catacombs and the tombs of the Appian Way, the Aventine's garden and keyhole, the pyramid and dinner in Testaccio.
The second day in Rome goes south, to the parts of the ancient city that sit outside the walls and the tour-bus loop. The morning is the Lateran and the vast baths of Caracalla; the middle of the day follows the Appian Way, the Romans' queen of roads, past the catacombs and the tombs; the afternoon comes back to the Aventine, the quietest of the seven hills, and the evening ends in Testaccio, where Rome's traditional cooking was born. The 118 bus does the long legs.
The route, stop by stop
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San Giovanni in Laterano
The cathedral of Rome, and the pope's, which outranks St Peter's. The giant apostles along the nave and the Lateran cloister are the things to see.
45 min here Walk here → -
Scala Santa
Across the road, the twenty-eight marble steps said to be the ones Christ climbed before Pilate, which pilgrims ascend on their knees. A side staircase lets you walk up to the chapel at the top.
20 min here Walk here → -
Baths of Caracalla
The imperial baths of 216 AD, walls thirty metres high and floor mosaics still in place, where sixteen hundred Romans bathed at once. Summer opera is staged in the ruins.
60 min here Walk here → -
Catacombs of San Callisto
Arrive by bus from the previous stop
Out on the 118 to the Appian Way. Twenty kilometres of galleries on four levels, where nine popes of the 3rd century were buried; seen only on the guided tour, and closed on Wednesdays.
60 min here Walk here → -
Tomb of Caecilia Metella
A kilometre on along the old paving stones, past the umbrella pines, to the great drum of a tomb built for a noblewoman in the 1st century BC and later made into a castle.
45 min here Walk here → -
Giardino degli Aranci
Arrive by bus from the previous stop
Back by bus to the Aventine and the orange garden on its edge, with Rome across the river and St Peter's in the frame.
20 min here Walk here → -
Aventine Keyhole
Queue at the green door of the Knights of Malta and look through the keyhole: a hedged avenue and St Peter's dome perfectly framed at the end of it.
15 min here Walk here → -
Pyramid of Cestius
A marble pyramid of 12 BC set into the city wall, and beside it the Non-Catholic Cemetery where Keats and Shelley lie, with a colony of cats among the graves.
40 min here Walk here → -
Testaccio
Dinner in the old slaughterhouse district that gave Rome its offal cooking — coda alla vaccinara, rigatoni with pajata — and some of its best cacio e pepe.
90 min here Walk here →
More in Rome
Every walking route in Rome, or the full Rome guide for where to stay and what a day costs.