Rated Tourist Attractions in Rome

One of Rome's most characteristic Baroque squares, Piazza Navona still has the outline of the Roman stadium built here by Emperor Domitian. It was still used for festivals and horse races during the Middle Ages, and was rebuilt in the Baroque style by Borromini, who also designed the magnificent series of palaces and the church of Sant'Agnese, on its west side.

One of the most majestic of the churches in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore has stood here since the fourth-century Pope Liberius had a vision of the Virgin directing him to build a church where snow fell the following day. Although it was August, snow did fall on the Esquiline hill the next morning, so here the great basilica was built.

Marking a straight line from Piazza the Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo, Via del Corso is Rome's Main Street. Lined with shops and places to eat, and a few palaces housing art museums, including the magnificent Palazzo Doria Pamphilj. Work is underway to restore and re-design the century-old landmark Alberto Sordi Gallery, which will reopen as Agorà, with fewer shops and more public space for arts and entertainment.

Take a look at a Rome tourist map, and you'll see one area so filled with things to do that it's hard to read the street names. This is the Centro Storico, the historic center of Rome, with so many art-filled churches, resplendent palaces, and lively squares that you could spend your whole vacation strolling its ancient streets and lanes.

It's ironic that this grandiose monument, considered one of the national symbols of Italy, is rarely admired by Romans, who liken it to a wedding cake or a giant typewriter. Like it or not, the vast neo-classical structure crowns Capitoline Hill, the symbolic center of ancient Rome, overlooking the later city across Piazza Venezia.

One of the city's most popular tourist attractions, this 17th-century masterpiece has been immortalized in films until it is almost a required visit. Throwing a coin (not three) into the Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi) is a tradition that is supposed to assure your return to Rome.

Walking through the forum, now in the middle of a throbbing modern city, is like stepping back two millennia into the heart of ancient Rome. Although what survives of this center of Roman life and government shows only a small fraction of its original splendor, the standing and fallen columns, its triumphal arches, and the remains of its walls still impress, especially when you consider that for centuries, the history of the Forum was the history of the Roman Empire and of the Western world.

The Pantheon - the best-preserved monument of Roman antiquity - is remarkably intact for its 2000 years. This is despite the fact that Pope Gregory III removed the gilded bronze roof tiles, and Pope Urban VIII ordered its bronze roof stripped and melted down to cast the canopy over the altar in St. Peter's and cannons for Castel Sant'Angelo.

The Vatican is the smallest independent state in the world, with an area of less than half a square kilometer, most of it enclosed by the Vatican walls.

As the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, the silhouette of the Flavian Amphitheatre is to Rome. The largest structure left to us by Roman antiquity, the Colosseum still provides the model for sports arenas - present-day football stadium design is clearly based on this oval Roman plan.