Monti and the Esquiline in six hours

The route, stop by stop

1. 1
   Trajan's Market

   A curving brick complex of shops and offices built into the hillside around 110 AD, often called the world's oldest shopping centre. It houses the Museum of the Imperial Forums.

   60 min here Walk here →
2. 2
   Piazza della Madonna dei Monti

   The neighbourhood's living room, around a 16th-century fountain. The streets off it, Via del Boschetto and Via Urbana, are full of small shops and places for lunch.

   45 min here Walk here →
3. 3
   San Pietro in Vincoli

   The chains said to have bound St Peter are kept under the altar, but people come for Michelangelo's Moses, carved for the tomb of Pope Julius II.

   20 min here Walk here →
4. 4
   Santa Prassede

   A side chapel, the Chapel of St Zeno, is covered from floor to ceiling in 9th-century gold mosaic. Bring a coin for the light.

   20 min here Walk here →
5. 5
   Santa Maria Maggiore

   One of Rome's four papal basilicas, with 5th-century mosaics along the nave and a coffered ceiling said to be gilded with the first gold brought from the Americas. Pope Francis is buried here.

   30 min here Walk here →
6. 6
   Santa Maria degli Angeli

   Michelangelo turned the great hall of the Baths of Diocletian into a church in the 1560s. The brass meridian line set into its floor in 1702 told Rome when it was noon.

   25 min here Walk here →
7. 7
   Palazzo Massimo

   Part of the National Roman Museum. Upstairs is the painted garden room from the villa of Livia, the wife of Augustus: a whole room of birds and fruit trees.

   70 min here Walk here →