Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Rome
Villa Borghese to the Spanish Steps in six hours
The Borghese sculptures, the Pincio terrace, Caravaggio in Santa Maria del Popolo, lunch on Via Margutta, the Spanish Steps, Keats's house and the altar of Augustus.
Rome's six-hour question has not had an answer on this site until now. This is it: the greatest small museum in the world first, on a timed slot, then down through the park to the city's northern gate and along the elegant streets that tourists came to in the 18th century. It is a short walk and a long day of looking, and nearly all of it is downhill.
The route, stop by stop
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Borghese Gallery
Bernini's Apollo and Daphne and the Rape of Proserpina, Canova's reclining Pauline Borghese and six Caravaggios, in a cardinal's villa. Entry is by booked two-hour slot only.
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Pincio Terrace
Through the Villa Borghese gardens to the terrace over the Piazza del Popolo, with St Peter's dome on the skyline across the river.
30 min here Walk here → -
Santa Maria del Popolo
Down the ramp to the church by the city gate. The two Caravaggios in the Cerasi Chapel — the Conversion of Saul and the Crucifixion of Peter — are to the left of the altar; the Chigi Chapel was designed by Raphael.
30 min here Walk here → -
Via Margutta
Lunch on the artists' street where Fellini lived and Gregory Peck's apartment in Roman Holiday was, at No. 51. Galleries, ivy and a quiet no other street near the Corso has.
45 min here Walk here → -
Spanish Steps
The 18th-century staircase from the Piazza di Spagna to Trinità dei Monti. Sitting on them has been banned since 2019, with fines; stand at the top for the view down Via Condotti.
20 min here Walk here → -
Keats-Shelley House
The small room beside the steps where John Keats died in 1821, aged twenty-five, now a museum of the English Romantics in Rome.
30 min here Walk here → -
Ara Pacis
Augustus's Altar of Peace of 9 BC, carved with the imperial family in procession, in Richard Meier's glass pavilion beside the emperor's own mausoleum.
45 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.