A Very Subjective List of the Best Day Trips from Rome

Issue #51

Rome has more than enough things to do to keep you busy for weeks. Take it from me—I’ve spent six years living in the city and still have yet to see and do everything. If you’re visiting for more than a few days, though, it can be nice to ditch the crowds and do a day trip in the surrounding area. Within easy reach of the city you’ll find beautiful beaches, charming hill towns, vineyards, archeological sites, aristocratic palaces, and a very special sculpture park.

Many publications have published lists of the best day trips from Rome, but for this list I’m limiting the destinations to places that you can reach in a maximum of 100 minutes from Rome. I’m also only including places that you can actually see in a day. You could, for example, take the Frecciarossa high-speed train to Florence or Naples and get there in about 100 minutes, but you would be doing yourself a disservice because you’d be rushing around just to tick sights off a list without taking the time to really enjoy them (which kind of defeats the purpose of escaping the city in favor of a more relaxed experience).

There are still a number of places within day-tripping distance that I want to visit, like Civita di Bagnoregio and the Giardino di Ninfa, which is why I can’t claim that this is a definitive list. That said, I’ve visited a wide range of places that make excellent day trips from Rome. This is my very subjective list of eight day trips that I think are worth your time and money.

Orvieto

Just over the border in Umbria, Orvieto is one of the most charming hill towns in all of Italy. It takes a little more than an hour to get there from Rome and from the train station in Orvieto, you take a funicular up the hill to reach the historic center. The surrounding landscape is characterized by green rolling hills and the town is as quaint as they come.

You can’t miss the Duomo, Orvieto’s gothic cathedral, which is impressive both inside and out. Then just stroll the cobblestone streets, popping into the little boutiques and sitting down for lunch of traditional Umbrian specialties like wild boar ragù or fresh pasta with black truffles.

Castelli Romani

The Castelli Romani is a collection of 13 hill towns southeast of Rome where Romans have long gone to escape the heat and crowds of the city and enjoy some of the area’s renowned food and wine. Historically, many aristocratic families built palaces here and there are many vineyards producing wine.

You obviously can’t visit all of the towns in a day, but I recommend visiting Frascati (the closest town to Rome), Castel Gandolfo (home to the papal summer palace), Ariccia (famous for porchetta), or perhaps Nemi (set overlooking a tranquil lake and famous for wild strawberries) to start. Most of them are reachable by train.