You are staying on the quietest hill in Rome, three minutes from the keyhole everyone else queues for and two from a terrace over the river with real benches under orange trees. The Aventine has ordinary residential streets, so the cart stops at your door. The route starts on top of the hill and runs north, downhill, into the city.
Starting with the best of it
The advantage of this address is that you begin with the two best stops of the day, before anyone else has reached them.
Minutes 0–15. The keyhole at the Priory of the Knights of Malta, ninety seconds from most Aventine hotels. Look through and a tunnel of clipped hedge frames the dome of St Peter's exactly, from three kilometres away. Then the Giardino degli Aranci two minutes on: full shade, benches, and the whole west of the city below you. You smell the orange trees before you see them.
Minutes 15–30. Down through Testaccio if you want it. The covered market, the old slaughterhouse, and Monte dei Cocci, a fifty-metre hill made entirely of broken Roman amphorae thrown there over three centuries. It explains more about how the ancient city worked than most standing ruins do. No tour bus has ever stopped there.
Minutes 30–45. North to the Circus Maximus: a three-minute photo stop, a vast empty field with the Palatine ruins rising along one side and usually nobody in the way. Then past the Bocca della Verità and the two small round temples beside it, among the oldest standing buildings in Rome and passed by almost everybody.
Minutes 45–70. The Theatre of Marcellus and the Jewish Quarter, slow-and-tell. There is nowhere here for a coach to stop, which is why you have probably never seen a photograph of it. Then up past the Capitoline to Piazza Venezia.
Minutes 70–110. Into the centre for the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain on foot, five to ten minutes at each, with the cart waiting at the edge of the pedestrian zone.
Minutes 110–150. Home along the river past Isola Tiberina, or over into Trastevere for the last half hour if you would rather end there. From this hill both work, and the choice is usually made in the cart rather than in advance.
How long things take from the Aventine
| From the Aventine to | By cart | On foot |
|---|---|---|
| The keyhole | 2 min | 3 min — walk it |
| Giardino degli Aranci | 3 min | 5 min — walk it |
| Circus Maximus | 5 min | 12 min, steep down |
| Colosseum (from outside) | 10 min | 25 min |
| Pantheon | 16 min | 35 min |
| Trastevere | 10 min | 25 min |
Best hour to leave. First thing in the morning, and it is not close. The keyhole queue builds from mid-morning and can run twenty people deep by noon; at half past eight you often walk straight up to it. The Circus Maximus has no shade at all and is best before nine or after seven. If you can only go in the evening we reverse the loop and take the Aventine stops at the end, once the queue has gone and the orange garden is at its best.
The hill itself
Worth being plain about: the Aventine is steep from every direction.
On top it is flat, shaded, silent and one of the most pleasant places to walk in the whole city. That contrast is why the arrival method matters more here than anywhere else. Get up by vehicle and the hill becomes an easy quarter. Walk up in July and you have spent your afternoon.
Testaccio below is flat, ordinary and genuinely Roman: a working quarter with a market, no monuments to speak of, and the best food in this part of the city.
The keyhole without the queue and the Circus Maximus without the sun both come from leaving early, from your own door: check morning availability.
Where we meet you
Straightforward. The Aventine is residential, with ordinary streets: via di Santa Sabina, viale Aventino, via di San Teodoro. The cart stops at hotel entrances without complication, and the same is true throughout Testaccio.
The one exception is the area immediately around the Priory square on busy mornings, when the queue spills into the road. On those days the driver waits fifty metres back.
Prices
| Guests | Price per cart | Cart |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | €390 | 4 seats, driver takes one |
| 4–5 | €490 | 6 seats, driver takes one |
| 6–7 | €590 | 8 seats, driver takes one |
| 8+ | Quote on request | Two carts |
Per cart, all in, about two and a half hours. Extra stop €19.50, child seat free. No tickets and no interiors, including the Priory garden, which is not open to casual visitors. The keyhole is a view through a door, and that door is free.
For hotels on the hill and in Testaccio
We work with a small number of luxury hotels in central Rome, and we keep the circle deliberately small: the same driver standard every time, one number that answers, and a guest who comes back to your desk happy. Guests up here chose quiet over central, and by day two they are asking your desk for a way into the city that is not a twenty-five-minute walk downhill.
If you would like your property to be part of it, write to partnership@aurarometours.it, or see the partner page.
The hill is the whole reason: the climbs in Rome that catch people out. In summer the Circus Maximus has no shade at all, so it is worth reading which hours actually work.
The keyhole, the orange garden, the Circus Maximus and the whole city below you, from your door, before the crowds. €390 for one to three guests, €490 for four or five, €590 for six or seven.