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Each one a single question, answered in full
The articles
- I
Getting HereHow do you get from Fiumicino Airport to central Rome?
Most visitors take the Leonardo Express, the non-stop train from the airport's own station to Roma Termini. How to find the train, when the regional FL1 line makes more sense, how to recognize an official taxi and its fixed fare to the center, and what to ignore on the way out.
- II
Day TripsHow do you visit Ostia Antica from Rome?
Ostia Antica, the port city of ancient Rome, is the easiest day trip from the center: a suburban train from Porta San Paolo, beside the Piramide Metro stop, takes you to a Roman town preserved under sand. How to get there, what the town was, what to look for among its streets, apartment blocks and baths, and how to plan the day.
- III
Getting AroundHow does the Rome Metro work for visitors?
Rome has only three Metro lines, and none of them runs through the heart of the old center. Which line reaches which sights, where they cross, why building them takes so long, how the Metrebus fare system ties them to the buses and trams, and when walking is simply faster.
- IV
The RioniWhy are the districts of Rome called rioni?
Old Rome is divided into twenty-two rioni, numbered from Monti to Prati, and their names are carved at street corners. Where the word comes from, how fourteen ancient regions became twenty-two modern districts, what the 1744 plaques are, and how to use the numbers to find your way.
- V
The PantheonWhy does the Pantheon have a hole in its roof?
The Pantheon's dome has been open to the sky for nearly nineteen centuries. What the oculus does for the weight of the dome, how the builders made the concrete lighter as it rose, where the rain goes, how the light moves around the hall, and the rose petals that fall through it at Pentecost.
- VI
Vatican CityWhy is Vatican City a separate country?
St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums stand in the smallest country in the world, not in Italy. How a thousand years of papal rule ended in 1870, why the popes called themselves prisoners, what the Lateran Treaty of 1929 created, and what the border means for a visitor today.
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