Termini is better connected than anywhere in Rome and worse placed for sightseeing on foot than almost anywhere else. The nearest major sight, the Colosseum, is 1.5 kilometres away: twenty minutes down via Cavour, twenty-five back up it at the end of the day. The cart meets you on a side street rather than at the terminal, and the route runs south-west and downhill.
Downhill, then out
This is the one part of central Rome where the first ten minutes of a tour are genuinely transport. After that it opens fast.
Minutes 0–10. Down via Cavour past Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the four great basilicas and a slow-and-tell stop. It is enormous, free to enter, and skipped by nearly everyone staying two streets from it.
Minutes 10–25. Into Monti: via Panisperna, via dei Serpenti, the streets behind the Imperial Forums. A working Roman quarter with the oldest street plan in the city, and the last place most visitors expect to be twelve minutes after leaving the station.
Minutes 25–40. Out at the Colosseum, seen from outside and from the road that curves around it. We do not go in, and there is no way to be taken past the queue. What you get instead is the exterior from the Oppian side at an hour when it can be photographed.
Minutes 40–60. Past the Circus Maximus, a three-minute photo stop with the Palatine rising behind it, then up the Aventine to the keyhole and the Giardino degli Aranci. Shade, benches, a terrace over the river.
Minutes 60–90. Down to the Bocca della Verità and the Theatre of Marcellus, past the Jewish Quarter and up to Piazza Venezia.
Minutes 90–150. The centre on foot in short bursts: the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, then back up via del Tritone through Piazza Barberini to the station side. You return by a different road than you left on, which from this address is the difference between a loop and a there-and-back.
How long things take from Termini
| From Termini to | By cart | On foot |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Maria Maggiore | 4 min | 10 min |
| Colosseum | 10 min | 20 min down, 25 back up |
| Trevi Fountain | 12 min | 25 min |
| Pantheon | 16 min | 30 min |
| Aventine keyhole | 20 min | 45 min with a climb |
Best hour to leave. Early morning if you can manage it. An eight o'clock departure puts you at the Colosseum before the coaches and on the Aventine before the keyhole queue forms, and the return up via Cavour at half past ten is a road rather than an ordeal. Evening works too, with one caveat: the streets immediately around the station are busier and less pleasant after dark than the rest of the centre, so we bring you back to the door instead of to a corner.
Between trains
One of the better uses of a long layover, and we are asked often.
The arithmetic: allow the full two and a half hours plus thirty minutes of margin either side. A four-hour gap works. A three-hour gap does not, and we will tell you so rather than take the booking and hurry you.
Leave luggage in the station's left-luggage office. The cart has space behind the rear seat for coats and camera bags, not for suitcases.
Where we meet you
Not in front of the terminal. Piazza dei Cinquecento is a permanent scrum of buses, taxis and coaches, and it is a poor meeting point for anybody.
The usual points are via Marsala on the north side, via Giolitti on the south, or a stretch of via Cavour a hundred metres down from the square, whichever is closest to your entrance. Most hotels in this district sit on ordinary streets where the cart stops at the door.
If you are here for one night between trains and want the city rather than the station, this is the two and a half hours that does it.
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, no Colosseum interior, no queue access.
For hotels near the station
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 staying near the station ask the front desk how to reach the sights more often than guests anywhere else in Rome, and this is the answer that starts at your door.
If you would like your property to be part of it, write to partnership@aurarometours.it, or see the partner page.
On the return climb and the distances generally, see how to see Rome without walking all day. If you are here for a single day, the realistic one-day itinerary starts from this side of the centre.
Monti, the Colosseum from outside, the Circus Maximus and the Aventine, then home by a different road. €390 for one to three guests, €490 for four or five, €590 for six or seven.