Six must see places in Rome that you should not miss

Six Must-see Places in Rome that you should not miss

Aside from the delectable Italian cuisine, world famous wines, beautiful scenic views and a relaxing stay on one of owners direct in Italy. There are places in Rome that you shouldn’t miss. And here are six of them.

Trevi Fountain Trevi Fountain is famous as the place where actress Anita Ekberg waded in a gown for Italian director Federico Fellini’s 1960 classic film, La Dolce Vita. The fountain sits at the end of a 2,000-year-old underground aqueduct that brings water from the Salone springs, about 18km away. It shows the god of the sea, Neptune, being pulled along by two great winged horses, one placid, one frenzied, representing the extremes of the oceans. Every day, the fountain’s visitors toss around 3,000 euros over their shoulders in hopes of someday returning to Rome, as legend promises.

Colosseum The Colosseum – or the Flavian Amphitheatre, as it was originally known –was built over the course of eight years in the First Century AD. The ring of brick arches was constructed using the same techniques the Romans had perfected in the building of aqueducts, and it was completely clad in marble, now long since stripped away. The structure was once the home to the ruthless Roman games, in which gladiators and prisoners would battle each other – not to mention a menagerie of wild animals – for the entertainment of a bloodthirsty crowd.

Roman Forum The Roman Forum was a public square at the center of the imperial city, lined with temples, senate debating chambers and monuments. All decisions concerning the vast empire were made here. Today, it is a vast, rock-strewn area studded with crumbled columns and rubble, alongside several restored

buildings. The front portico of the Temple of Saturn, seen here in the foreground, stands at the foot of Capitoline Hill at the western end of the Roman Forum.

Pantheon The Pantheon was built in 27 BC by Emperor Marcus Agrippa as a tribute to the gods, but over the course of its lifetime, the Pantheon has been dismantled and rebuilt, plundered, become a Catholic basilica and been converted into a royal burial ground. Today it is an amalgamation of all of the above – part museum, part Catholic church, part architectural wonder. The concrete of the dome, made using volcanic ash to keep it light, was poured on using moulds and scaffolding, and carefully crafted so as to be thinner at the top, ensuring that the base of the dome can support the rest.

St Peter’s Basilica St Peter’s Basilica, where the Pope delivers his blessings, is the most magnificent church in a city that does magnificent churches like no other. It was a combined effort by Rome’s most legendary 16thcentury architects. Donato Bramante, one of the pioneers of Renaissance architecture, came up with the blueprint around 1503, and Raphael reworked it before Michelangelo took over in 1547 and added his soaring Florentine-inspired dome. The Basilica houses Michelangelo’s famously sublime Pietà, a statue of the Virgin Mary cradling the crucified body of her son.

Villa Borghese A garden of scandalous sculptures – From iconic basilicas to gardens with a past, Italy’s capital city has served as a stunning backdrop for thousands of years’ worth of history. Once the lavish gardens of the 17th-century cardinal who bequeathed the park its name, Villa Borghese has long been Rome’s favorite

place to escape the city’s hectic streets. In the 19th Century, the villa’s once-formal gardens were fully landscaped in a more naturalistic style, before being bought by the Roman authorities and given to the public in 1903. Today, busts and statues from 1,000 years of the city’s great and good are scattered throughout, including the once-scandalous sculpture of Cardinal Borghese’s wife and Napoleon’s sister, Pauline. The piece depicts her as a naked goddess of love, much to the cardinal’s chagrin.