Rome hides more masterpieces in free parish churches than most countries hold in national museums. This three-day route pairs Borghese Berninis and Caravaggio altarpieces with Teatro dell'Opera, MAXXI's Hadid concrete and the mosaic ateliers of Monti.
Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, Pluto and Proserpina, plus six Caravaggios in Scipione Borghese's 1613 villa. Entry is by timed two-hour slot only, booked ahead; €13 plus €2 booking, first slot 09:00, closed Mondays.
Caravaggio's Conversion of Saint Paul and Crucifixion of Saint Peter (1601) hang either side of the altar in a chapel Raphael also worked in. The church is free; a €1 coin in the box lights the canvases for roughly two minutes.
Hadrian's 125 AD dome remains the largest unreinforced concrete span ever built, 43.3m across with an open 8.9m oculus. Five minutes east, Andrea Pozzo's 1685 Sant'Ignazio ceiling fakes a dome entirely in paint.
Three Caravaggios on the life of Saint Matthew, painted 1599–1602, in the French national church. Free entry, open until 19:00 most days, closed for Mass around 12:30–14:30. Coin-operated lighting, benches directly opposite.
Zaha Hadid's 2010 concrete ribbons in the Flaminio barracks district, Italy's first national contemporary art and architecture museum. Around €12, open 11:00–19:00 Tuesday to Sunday, late until 22:00 on Saturdays.
Pasolini's local while filming Accattone in 1961, still serving in the Pigneto pedestrian strip that became Rome's street-art quarter. Plates of pasta and cured meats under the pergola, with murals along Via Fanfulla da Lodi outside.
Bernini and Borromini both built here: rival staircases, one square and one oval, in the same 1633 palace. Inside hang Raphael's La Fornarina, Holbein's Henry VIII and Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes.
Opened 1880 as Teatro Costanzi, where Tosca and Cavalleria Rusticana premiered. Winter season runs opera and the resident ballet company; summer performances move outdoors to the Baths of Caracalla. Gallery seats from around €25.
Founded in the 340s, rebuilt 1140s, with a golden apse mosaic of Christ and Mary enthroned and Pietro Cavallini's 1291 Life of the Virgin panels below. Free, opens 07:30, twenty-two ancient columns looted from Roman baths.
A narrow lane behind Campo de' Fiori named for its hatmakers, still lined with furniture restorers, gilders and frame-makers working with doors open. Free to walk; most botteghe shut 13:00–16:00 for pranzo.
Classical marbles displayed against the diesel engines and steam turbines of Rome's first public power station, opened 1912. A branch of the Capitoline Museums on Via Ostiense, roughly €10, open Tuesday to Sunday 09:00–19:00.
The rione between the Forum and Termini keeps independent bookshops, vintage dealers and the Sunday Mercato Monti in a former cinema. Aperitivo tables spill across Piazza della Madonna dei Monti around its 1589 fountain.