Hidden Rome: a guide to the city's best-kept secrets

Rome is one of the world’s most visited tourist destinations and its most popular attractions receive millions of visitors each year. Thankfully though, the city is so packed with world-class museums, churches and gardens that it’s easy to escape the crowds and find a little corner that’s all your own. Here is our selection of Rome’s finest hidden treasures and secret pleasures.

Great basilicas

St Peter’s Basilica receives up to 20,000 visitors a day. However, there are other great basilicas in Rome that are magnificent, huge and exquisite, yet have astoundingly little tourist traffic. For instance, take the Metro out a few stops to San Paolo Fuori le Mura (Via Ostiense 190), the third-largest church in Christendom, and you may well be the only visitor. It’s humbling in its vast scale, mostly 19th century, with a 5th-century triumphal arch that dates from its original incarnation and medieval Cosmati mosaics in the cloister.

Another gloriously beautiful patriarchal basilica is that of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura (Piazzale San Lorenzo) in the university district of San Lorenzo. Arguably one of Rome’s loveliest churches, with a stark, haunting beauty, it receives just the occasional visitor, which only adds to its atmosphere.

Heavenly gardens

However, if you’re looking for a secret-feeling place closer to St Peter’s, take a tour of the Vatican Gardens, open to the select few who have the foresight to book a week in advance. It’s a chance to peek into the Vatican’s rarefied world: these finely manicured gardens have an Alice-in-Wonderland ambience, styled with groomed symmetrical box hedges and grottoes.

Baroque treasure trove

Crossing over to the other side of the Tiber River, as hordes mill around the Spanish Steps, walk a few paces from the madding crowd and you can visit the little-known Museo Missionario di Propaganda Fide. In a building designed by baroque masters Bernini and Borromini, this houses centuries-worth of fascinating bounty that priests have brought back from overseas, but also allows a chance to peep into Bernini’s wood-lined library and Borromini’s Chapel of the Magi.

Super-cheap pasta

Also in the Tridente district, which glitters with designer shops, there are several other fabulous, little-known spots: for a cheap, delicious lunch, try the tiny pasta shop Pastificio (Via della Croce). On Monday to Saturday lunchtimes, from 1-3pm, they serve two fresh pasta dishes; a scattering of those in the know hang around waiting for the food to be freshly delivered. You can eat here for EUR4 – an incredible bargain in this upscale area.

Bespoke leather bags

Other great hidden spots in Tridente are the district’s several stuck-in-time leather artisanal workshops. For example, at Pelleteria Nives (Via delle Carrozze 16), tucked away on the first floor, you can have a custom-made bespoke bag, wallet or belt made to your exact specifications, at the fraction of the price of the designer glitz on sale in the surrounding stores.

Rome’s best tiramisu

Then, if you’re in need of the perfect pudding, then you should head over Via della Croce, just a street away. Near here is a place legendary in Rome, but which few tourists ever discover: Pompi. This is famous for Rome’s finest tiramisu (which means ‘pick me up’) in flavours from classic to pina colada. Spot it by the crowds of young locals outside, lolling around their scooters, all tucking into the light-as-air dessert.

Masterful gelato

However, you might prefer gelato, in which case you’re advised to go to the master, Claudio Torcè (Viale Aventino 59), who has a little-known franchise on the Aventino. This place rarely appears in guidebooks, yet local connoisseurs swear that this is Rome’s best ice cream. It’s certainly its most inventive, specialising in flavours such as celery, carrot and gorgonzola.

Contemporary dolce vita

Trastevere, the vibrantly pretty district south of the Vatican, is everyone’s favourite setting for an evening drink, with its gorgeous tangle of ochre and orange ivy-draped buildings. It’s the perfect place to pass the time outside a bar, but can get extraordinarily busy, especially in summer. To escape the crowds and embrace Roman cool, walk a short way up the Gianicolo (Janiculum hill) to Il Baretto (Via Garibaldi 27), a beautifully designed place with a vintage feel, leafy terrace and plate-glass views over the neighbourhood. If you’re hankering after a taste of Rome’s contemporary dolce vita (sweet life), then this is where to head.

This article was first published in February 2012 and updated in April 2018.