Overview
Rome layers 2,700 years of history in a living city where ancient ruins sit beside baroque churches, trattorias serve the same recipes for generations, and every neighborhood conceals masterpieces that other cities would build museums around.
The Trevi Fountain — Rome's baroque showpiece, at its calmest before 8 AM.
© Brian Kinney / Adobe Stock
History
Founded (traditionally) in 753 BC by Romulus, Rome grew from a hilltop settlement to the capital of an empire spanning from Britain to Mesopotamia. The Republic gave way to the Empire, which fell in 476 AD but left infrastructure, law, and architecture that defined Western civilization. Medieval Rome became the seat of papal power, the Renaissance made it an artistic capital (Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante), the baroque era added Bernini's fountains and piazzas, and the Risorgimento (1871) made it capital of unified Italy. Today's Rome lives among all these layers simultaneously—a 21st-century city whose daily life unfolds among ruins, churches, and palaces spanning nearly three millennia.
Culture
Roman cuisine centers on four canonical pastas: cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana, and gricia—all built on pecorino romano and guanciale. Pizza in Rome is thin-crust and sold al taglio (by weight). Supplì are the Roman answer to arancini. Espresso is drunk standing at the bar — a seated table on a tourist piazza costs a multiple of the counter price. Aperitivo hour brings generous buffets with your drink. Testaccio market and Jewish Ghetto restaurants represent the most authentic food experiences. Romans eat late: dinner rarely before 8:30 PM. Festivals: Easter Week & Papal Mass (Vatican), Estate Romana (summer cultural festival), Festa de' Noantri (July — Trastevere), Rome Film Fest (October). Museums: Vatican Museums, Borghese Gallery, Capitoline Museums, Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, MAXXI (contemporary art).
Practical Info
Safety: Rome is generally safe. Pickpocketing is the main concern—bus 64 (Termini-Vatican route), crowded Metro, and areas around the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain are hotspots. Unofficial taxi drivers outside Termini overcharge; use only white licensed taxis. Some restaurants near major sights are tourist traps with inflated prices; walk a few blocks for authenticity. Emergency: 112 or 113. Language: Italian. English is spoken in hotels and tourist restaurants but less common than expected—basic Italian helps significantly and is greatly appreciated. Currency: EUR. Cards widely accepted but some trattorias and pizza al taglio shops prefer cash. ATMs (bancomat) are everywhere.
Travel
Rome is the Eternal City in the most literal sense—a place where you walk on 2,000-year-old roads, eat lunch in a piazza designed by Bernini, and pass a Caravaggio hanging in a dimly lit chapel on your way to dinner. The Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill anchor the ancient world in the very heart of the modern city, while the Vatican Museums house one of humanity's greatest art collections culminating in the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But Rome rewards those who wander beyond the headlines: Trastevere's cobblestone lanes and ivy-draped trattorias, the Aventine Hill's secret keyhole framing St. Peter's dome, the Appian Way's ancient tombs stretching into the countryside, and neighborhood markets where Romans buy their daily produce. The food is deceptively simple and extraordinary—cacio e pepe, carbonara, supplì, and thin-crust Roman pizza perfected over centuries. Espresso at the bar is a ritual taken standing and finished in seconds, gelato is an art form, and aperitivo hour fills piazzas with Aperol spritzes and free snacks at sunset. Rome's public transport is functional if imperfect (two Metro lines, extensive buses), but the centro storico is best explored on foot—getting lost among the tangle of streets between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona is how you find Rome's real magic.
The Colosseum remains the most visceral connection to the ancient world—standing inside the arena where 50,000 spectators watched gladiatorial combat 2,000 years ago, with the underground hypogeum now open revealing the lifting mechanisms and animal cages that staged the spectacles. Combined tickets include the adjacent Roman Forum, where temples, triumphal arches, and senate buildings line the Via Sacra creating an open-air museum of Republican and Imperial Rome, and the Palatine Hill above, where emperors built their palaces overlooking the Circus Maximus chariot racing track. Advance timed-entry tickets are essential—they sell out days ahead in peak season. Beyond the iconic trio, ancient Rome appears throughout the city: the perfectly preserved Pantheon (a small entry fee since 2023) with its 2,000-year-old unreinforced concrete dome and oculus, the Baths of Caracalla that once accommodated 1,600 bathers, the catacombs along the Appian Way housing early Christian burial sites, and Trajan's Markets considered the world's first shopping mall.
Frequently asked questions
Diplomatic missions in Rome
142 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.