Monti is the oldest rione of Rome and the one Romans still live in: cobbled lanes, artisans, wine bars, and the Colosseum at the end of the street.
Via Cavour cuts straight from Termini to the Forum, and everything worth seeing in Monti is one turn off it. Via dei Serpenti and Via del Boschetto are the two lanes of small shops and restaurants; Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, with its fountain, is where the neighbourhood sits with a glass of wine at nine in the evening.
The Colosseum is a ten-minute walk downhill, the Roman Forum and the Imperial Fora the same, and you can walk to the Capitoline Hill, the Vittoriano and Piazza Venezia in twenty. Santa Maria Maggiore, with its fifth-century mosaics, is five minutes uphill. Cavour metro (line B, three minutes) takes you to the Vatican with one change and to Termini in one stop.
It is a residential quarter, so the practical things are at hand: a supermarket on the ground floor of the building, a pharmacy, a coin laundromat, bakeries, and the Mercato Monti weekend market of young designers. Guests arriving by train love that they can walk from Termini with their bags in twelve minutes.
Where to eat
- Ai Tre Scalini — The Monti wine bar, Via Panisperna. Go early or queue with the locals.
- La Carbonara — On Via Panisperna since 1906; walls covered in guests' notes.
- Alle Carrette — Thin Roman pizza, big tables, kids welcome, Vicolo delle Carrette.
- Fatamorgana — Natural gelato, Piazza degli Zingari. Try the basil-walnut-honey.
- Urbana 47 — Farm-to-table Roman breakfast and lunch on Via Urbana.
What to see
- Colosseum & Forum — Buy the combined ticket online; enter the Forum from Via dei Fori Imperiali to avoid the queue.
- San Pietro in Vincoli — Michelangelo's Moses, five minutes away, free.
- Santa Maria Maggiore — The papal basilica at the top of Via Cavour; go for the 5th-century mosaics.
- Domus Aurea — Nero's buried palace, weekend tours with VR headsets.
- Santa Prassede — Byzantine mosaics of the Chapel of St Zeno, a hidden jewel behind Santa Maria Maggiore.
Practical tips
- —Walk to the Colosseum at dusk: it is lit at sunset and the crowds are gone.
- —Via Cavour is a main street; the bedrooms face the courtyard and are silent.
- —Termini is 12 minutes on foot: no taxi needed for train arrivals.