Rome by Luxury Train

Rome is a city where a Roman forum, a Renaissance basilica, and a Baroque fountain can all sit within a ten-minute walk of one another. The Eternal City has been a capital for millennia — of an empire, then of Christendom, and today of modern Italy — and it wears every era at once, from the broken columns of the Palatine Hill to the espresso bars of Trastevere. Few arrivals suit that grandeur better than stepping off a private train carriage into the heart of it.

Palace Trains brings travellers to Rome aboard two of the most storied names in rail travel: the newly relaunched Orient Express La Dolce Vita, whose Italian itineraries are built around exactly this kind of romance, and the legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, which links Rome to Venice, Paris, and beyond in restored 1920s and 1930s carriages. Both turn the journey into part of the destination, arriving in a city built for grand entrances.

Whether it is your first visit or your tenth, Rome rewards slow travel — long lunches, wandering piazzas, and gelato breaks between monuments — which makes the unhurried pace of a luxury train the ideal way to begin.

The Colosseum

The largest amphitheatre ever built by the Roman Empire, completed in 80 AD, once hosted gladiatorial contests for 50,000 spectators. Its arches and underground hypogeum chambers remain the single most recognisable symbol of ancient Rome.

Roman Forum and Palatine Hill

The political and social heart of ancient Rome, this sprawling archaeological site of temples, basilicas, and triumphal arches sits beside the Palatine Hill, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of the city and home to the ruins of imperial palaces.

Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel

Home to Michelangelo's ceiling and Last Judgment fresco, the Sistine Chapel caps a museum complex holding centuries of papal art collections, including the Raphael Rooms and the spiral Bramante Staircase.

St. Peter's Basilica

The largest church in Christendom, built over the traditional burial site of St. Peter, is crowned by Michelangelo's dome and houses his Pietà sculpture just inside the entrance.

The Pantheon

A near-perfectly preserved Roman temple, its coffered concrete dome and central oculus have inspired architects for nearly two thousand years; it now serves as a church and the burial place of Raphael.

Trevi Fountain

Rome's largest Baroque fountain, completed in 1762, draws crowds who toss a coin over their shoulder to ensure a return trip to the city.

Piazza Navona

A lively Baroque square built over an ancient stadium, anchored by Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers and ringed with cafes and street artists.

Trastevere

A cobblestoned neighbourhood across the Tiber, known for its medieval lanes, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, and Rome's liveliest trattorias and nightlife.

Galleria Borghese

An intimate, art-filled villa and gardens showcasing Bernini sculptures and Caravaggio paintings, requiring advance timed-entry booking due to its limited capacity.

Roman cooking is famously unfussy, built on a handful of pasta dishes and cuts of offal elevated by technique rather than ornament. The city's trattorias treat these classics with near-religious consistency.

• Cacio e pepe — pasta tossed with Pecorino Romano and cracked black pepper, emulsified into a silky sauce with pasta water; the purest test of a Roman kitchen.
• Spaghetti alla carbonara — eggs, guanciale (cured pork jowl), Pecorino Romano, and pepper, with no cream in a traditional version.
• Bucatini all'amatriciana — tomato sauce with guanciale and Pecorino, tossed with thick, hollow bucatini noodles.
• Carciofi alla giudia — Jewish-Roman fried whole artichokes, a specialty of the old Jewish Ghetto near Campo de' Fiori.
• Saltimbocca alla romana — veal cutlets layered with prosciutto and sage, pan-seared in butter and wine.
• Trapizzino — a modern Roman street-food invention: a pizza-dough pocket stuffed with braised meats like tongue in salsa verde or chicken cacciatora.
• Supplì — fried rice croquettes with a molten mozzarella centre, Rome's answer to the Sicilian arancino.
• Roman-style pizza — thin, cracker-crisp pizza al taglio sold by weight from bakeries across the city.
• Maritozzo — a soft breakfast bun split and filled with whipped cream, traditionally enjoyed with an espresso.

Wash it down with a glass of crisp Frascati white wine from the nearby Castelli Romani hills, or an aperitivo Negroni before dinner. The Testaccio and Campo de' Fiori markets are the best places to see Roman food culture up close, from produce stalls to century-old delis.