Where to stay in Rome

Cobblestone alleys draped with ivy and hung with laundry — this is the Rome that postcards try to capture. Genuinely local by day, raucous with aperitivo crowds by night. The best cheap trattorias in the city are here, and the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is one of Rome's loveliest.

Rome's original working-class quarter, built around a former slaughterhouse, now home to the city's best food market and a cluster of nose-to-tail trattorias that have been feeding Romans since the 1800s. No landmarks, no tours — just real Roman life and some of the cheapest, most honest cooking in the city.

The ancient heart of Rome — Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Campo de' Fiori, and a thousand narrow streets connecting them. Impossibly beautiful and correspondingly expensive. Stay here and you'll walk to everything, but your lunch will cost twice what it should.

Rome's coolest neighborhood: a tangle of streets between the Colosseum and Termini with vintage shops, wine bars, and the best aperitivo scene in the city. It feels like a village that somehow ended up in the middle of a capital. Walk uphill from the Forum and you're there.

The neighborhood immediately north of the Vatican — wide 19th-century boulevards, excellent delis and pasticcerias, and almost no tourists. Gelaterie here charge local prices. A perfect base for seeing the Vatican without paying Via della Conciliazione prices.

Rome's wealthiest residential district, bordering the Villa Borghese park. Quiet boulevards, boutique hotels, and proximity to the Borghese Gallery — the best single art collection in Rome. Taxis are the transport here; the metro doesn't reach.