3 days in Rome
A market focused itinerary
Last year a reader asked for some help with a Rome itinerary with a focus on markets. I do love an assignment. Paid subscribers to Gillian Knows Best have access to my comments section once a month to ask me questions like this. This post is an expansion of my answer to that readers question. It’s long and might get cut short in your email. Click "View entire message" to see the entire post. Here is my advice on one way to approach the how to spend 3 days in Rome question.
General Rome advice
Go into every open church and peek into every palazzo courtyard. Eat pizza bianca (with mortadella) and pizza rossa and gelato standing next to fountains and in piazzas and drink coffee at loud chaotic bars. Don’t get too hung up on if it’s THE place. If it looks good to you, it’s good!
Get tickets to go inside the Pantheon and walk by it again late at night. Galleria Borghese is a near perfect museum (you can buy tickets about a month in advance. Do that), Palazzo Altemps is usually empty. See as many Caravaggios as you can (there are 26 that live in Rome and until July 6 there is a Caravaggio show at the Palazzo Barberini.)
Food Tours in Rome
Walks has market and food tours in Testaccio and Trastevere. Alice Adams Carosi and Rachel Roddy are incredible Rome market resources. Sophie will show you around Trastevere.
3 days in Rome - A market itinerary
My itinerary planing style is to give you a few different options for coffee, meals, snacks, sites and shopping. The approach is more choose your own adventure than strict spreadsheet. This itinerary uses markets as its scaffolding. Some markets are large and sprawling and some are just a few stalls with limited hours. There are almost none of those picturesque open air markets with stands under umbrellas left anymore. Campo dei Fiori is the exception but even there you are going to find more bland spice blends and Rome T-shirts than fresh produce. Most markets are inside large structures and have individually run stalls.
My favorite Roman market is my (former) small neighborhood market in Monti, Mercato Rionale Monti. This is a sentimental opinion1. I still bring back lasagna from the pasta shop to Venice.
The Piazza Madonna dei Monti is my favorite place in Rome to sit on the fountain steps or meet pals for a drink at one of the bars in the piaza. Make sure you look for the Colosseum view, it’s only a few streets away. Have pizza at Alle Carrette, a glass of wine at Fafiuche, and a meal at Taverna Fori Imperiali.
Day 1: Testaccio
For a more in-depth market experience than Monti can offer, Mercato Testaccio is the place to start.
Walk past the Colosseum and Circo Massimo and stop for a fancy pastry at Casa Manfredi. Keep walking down the viale Aventino to Testaccio. You can stop off at the splendid non-catholic cemetery either before or after your market visit. Make sure you swing by and take a look at the hill made from shards of ancient amphore. You can’t miss the ancient pyramid. The neighborhood post office was co-designed by Mario De Renzi and Adalberto Libera and built few centuries later out of the same dazzling white marble and parts of the design are meant to echo an ancient Roman columbarium. The roots of the modern neighborhood church Santa Maria Liberatrice are the ancient chiesa di Santa Maria Antiqua in the Forum.
Mercato di Testaccio Monday-Saturday 07:00-15:30 + occasional evening events with music and food
In the Testaccio market I love the sandwiches at Morde e Vai. The pizza al taglio at Casa Manco is excellent. Have a glass of natural wine from da Corrado al Banco 18. There is fun non-food shopping too. Adelaide has charming housewares. Make sure you look for the piece of Roman road that runs underneath the market.
My favorite restaurant in Testaccio is Piatto Romano. You can wander around il Mattatoio, the former slaughterhouse or sit in one of the neighborhood’s two Piazzas; Piazza Testaccio with its 1930s amphorae fountain or Piazza di Santa Maria Liberatrice with a view of the neighborhood church. I buy my spices from Emporio Delle Spezie and enjoy browsing the tightly edited ceramics and jewelry at Assemblea.
Day 2. Trastevere
Start your day in Trastevere with morning coffee at Bar San Calisto. This is the most Roman of Roman bars. It’s scruffy and welcoming and enduring. In the morning until well into the afternoon there is a table of locals playing a fierce game of cards that follows the sun or the shade depending on the season.
Mercato di San Cosimato Monday-Saturday 07:00-13:30
This is an outside neighborhood market. There are produce stands in the piazza and a single row of stalls that sell cured meats and cheeses, pasta, and fish.(Look up and you will see my favorite collection of satellite dishes) I adore this piazza. It is truly a neighborhood place. There is a playground and lots of stone benches where you can sit down. On summer evenings an open air cinema fills the morning market space. Check to see if the door to the garden in front of the Chiesa di San Cosimato is open, if you are lucky you can visit the church and peek into the medieval cloister that is part of a public hospital.
I like the cardamom buns at Le Levain around the corner and up the street from the market. I usually get one to go and eat it in the sunshine on one of the stone benches that ring the Piazza. The pastries here are fancy and pretty and the perfect thing to bring for a dinner party dessert. Trappizzino is perfect for a quick lunch and good wine. For a restaurant meal my Trastevere pick is always Osteria Der Belli.
Many of the chapels in the ravishing Santa Maria dell Orto were sponsored by different guilds. Look for floor inlays for grocers, butchers and shoemakers.
Day 3. Prati/Trionfale or Esquilino
Option 1: If you are going to the Vatican
Start a few blocks away for coffee at SciaScia. There are tables outside but I prefer to stand at the bar in the back which has not been quite so restored. Ask for a splash of chocolate to be added to your espresso. They no longer roast their beans in the front window, but you can still buy a bag of their coffee to take home with you.
Mercato di Trionfale: Monday-Saturday 07:00 to 14:00 + extended hours on Tuesdays & Fridays
This was my first Roman market. I shopped here before the current modern structure was completed and all of the stalls were spread along the sidewalks on either side of via Andra Doria and I still use as my mental map when I am navigating the large inside space. Shop for porchetta and mozzarella and Wagyu and the freshest eggs.
On the via Candia I love Panifico Mosca for pizza bianca and pizza rossa. Forno Feliziani is a great tavola calda with trays of vegetables, pasta, pizza al taglio, and pastries. When I am in this part of town I stop at Gelateria Old Bridge for a chocolate milkshake.
The long stretch of via Cola di Rienzo and the nearby streets are good for shopping. COIN is a mid-range department store with a decent homewares section. Castroni sells coffee, tea, honey, and hard to find ingredients. Peroni2 is a small but extremely well stocked kitchenware shop.
Option 2: Explore Rome’s ancient and multicultural side
The Esquilino neighborhood is on one of Rome’s seven famous hills and is a mix of old and new Rome. Pasticcera Regoli is TikTok famous now so be prepared for a line. I like to go to the cafe in the morning and get a macchiato and a maritozzo at the bar. My other treat in this part of town is at Panella where I get cappuccino or macchiato with a big dollop of zabaglione. I sit down at a table and enjoy the view of the Auditorium of Maecenas.
Mercato Esquilino is the place to find un-Italian ingredients like feathery bunches of coriander from the Bangladeshi stand and tubs of sour cream and pickled beets from the Romanian stall.
Have lunch at the old school La’Amatriciana or grab a porchetta sandwich from Er Buchetto
Walk up the medieval via in Selci, a road that was maybe part of the ancient ancient clivus Suburanus and connects Monti to Esquilino. Look out for remnants of the Servian wall where modern buildings have just incorporated the large tuff bricks. The Arch of Gallieno, just off the via Merulana is a a remnant of the ancient Porta Esquilina. The Basilica Di Santa Prassede has some of my favorite sparkly mosaics and a very good cosmati floor. Santa Maria Maggiore is Pope Francis’s favorite church. These two churches are at border of the rione of Monti, but to me feel like they are in Esquilino. My favorite park in Rome is the Giardini Nicola Calipari in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Look for the Porta Magica that was the entrance to a 17th century alchemy lab. No one has ever been able to decipher the inscriptions. I often stop in the little park with a few Roman ruins and an 18th century building, the Aquario Romano, that started as a fish farm.
Are you planning a trip to Rome or Venice? I can help you make the most of your trip with itinerary, eating, and shopping advice. I know great guides who can take you to hard to access places and introduce you to artisans and boutique owners. Send me a message for more information.
The small Mercato Rionale Cola di Rienzo is currently closed for renovations.
Perfect itinerary!
Casa Manco is the best! I love to have some pizza there and then visit the Centrale Montemartini.