4 Best Sights in Rome, Italy

Neatly trimmed lawns and flower beds extend over the hills behind St. Peter's Basilica, an area dotted with some interesting structures and other, duller ones that serve as office buildings. The Vatican Gardens occupy almost 40 acres and include a formal Italian garden, a flowering French garden, a romantic English landscape, and a small forest.

There's also the little-used Vatican railroad station, which now houses a museum of coins and stamps made in the Vatican, and the Torre di San Giovanni (Tower of St. John), restored by Pope John XXIII as a retreat for work and now used as a residence for distinguished guests. To visit the gardens, join a three-hour walking tour that also includes the Sistine Chapel. Garden visits must be booked online.

Alessandro Farnese, a nephew of Pope Paul III, commissioned the 16th-century architect Vignola to lay out this archetypal Italian garden over the ruins of the Palace of Tiberius, on the northern side of the Palatine, with a spectacular view over the Forum. This was yet another example of the Renaissance renewing an ancient Roman tradition. To paraphrase the poet Martial, the statue-studded gardens of the Flavian Palace were such as to make even an Egyptian potentate turn green with envy.

Umbrella-like Roman pines line the pathway of Savello Park, an enchanting public garden atop the Aventine Hill. The towering trees lead the way to a mesmerizing belvedere of the Tiber and the city rooftops, offering views spanning from the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II all the way to St. Peter’s. The park is named after the Savelli family who built a fortified palace on the spot in the late 13^th century, but it is better known simply as the Giardino degli Aranci, or the Orange Garden, thanks to the numerous citrus trees that were planted here in honor of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican order who preached under an orange tree at the nearby cloister of Santa Sabina. The former fortress opened as a park in 1932, but there are still some traces of its more ancient past in the old walls opposite the church, where the outline of an old drawbridge is still visible.

As suggested by the paths shaped like a menorah, this was once a Jewish cemetery. All but one tombstone was moved, and the space is now a municipal garden that is open during the few weeks in the warmer months when the roses are in bloom. The garden is laid out to reflect the history of roses from antiquity to the present day and features more than 1,000 varieties. Its location also offers sweeping views across the old chariot track of the Circus Maximus.