Rome's ancient sites beyond the Colosseum: what is in the city and what is not

The short answer

Ancient Rome does not stop at the Colosseum park, and the sites beyond it are in different places with their own official pages. Two are in the city: the Baths of Caracalla and Castel Sant'Angelo. One, Ostia Antica, is within the municipality of Rome but away from the city a visitor stays in. Hadrian's Villa is not in Rome at all; it is in the town of Tivoli.[6]

XTOUR records each site under the place it is actually in, and treats Rome as the base for the others. XTOUR has no routing data, so it gives no travel times and does not say which sites fit in one day.

The Colosseum park

Italia.it, Italy's national tourism portal, says the Parco archeologico del Colosseo includes the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine Hill, the Arch of Constantine with the Meta Sudans, and the Domus Aurea.[1] None of the sites below is on that list. The Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine ticket guide covers that park.

The Baths of Caracalla

Rome's Special Superintendency describes the Baths of Caracalla as one of the best-preserved imperial buildings of antiquity, because later building never touched them, and says they were built in the southern part of the city and served by an aqueduct made for them, the Antoniniano. According to its page, Caracalla inaugurated the baths in AD 216, but work went on after his death in 217 and was finished under the last emperors of his dynasty, Elagabalus and Severus Alexander. The same page sets out the bathing rooms in sequence along one axis, the calidarium, tepidarium, frigidarium and natatio, and says the baths stopped working in AD 537, when Vitiges, king of the Goths, cut the aqueducts during the siege of Rome.[2]

The baths are in the city and are not part of the Colosseum park. The Superintendency's page for them also carries the visitor information: it says tickets are issued in the holder's name and sold only through the Musei Italiani portal and app or at the site itself.[2] XTOUR repeats none of its hours.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Castel Sant'Angelo began as the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which the emperor commissioned for himself and his family on the right bank of the Tiber, according to Turismo Roma. The same page says it was begun in AD 135 and completed in 139 by Antoninus Pius, a year after Hadrian's death, and became a museum in 1925.[3] Turismo Roma's museum entry describes the building as at once a monument, an archaeological area and a museum, and gives its website as direzionemuseiroma.cultura.gov.it.[4]

XTOUR records the building as the place and the museum as its current use. Hadrian's mausoleum in Rome and Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli are different places.

Ostia Antica

Ostia Antica is the excavated ancient city, run as an archaeological park. Turismo Roma says the colony was founded between the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BC as a castrum, a fortified citadel, and that the ports built under Claudius and Trajan made it more important for trade. It lists the park under its Ostia Antica - Lido di Ostia district, at Viale dei Romagnoli 717, near the village of Ostia Antica and the castle of Julius II, and gives the park's website as ostiaantica.cultura.gov.it.[5]

Wikidata places the ancient city of Ostia in the municipality of Roma Capitale.[6] XTOUR still records it as reached from the city rather than as part of the historic centre, because a municipality is not the same thing as the city a traveller stays in.

Hadrian's Villa and Villa d'Este, in Tivoli

Villa Adriana, Hadrian's Villa, and Villa d'Este are both in Tivoli.[6] They are different villas from different eras. Turismo Roma says Hadrian built Villa Adriana around AD 126 as his official residence, and that Villa d'Este was built at the behest of Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, who became Governor of Tivoli in the mid-16th century.[7] Italy's national tourism portal dates Hadrian's Villa differently, giving its construction as AD 118 to 138.[8] XTOUR reports both and does not choose between them. Turismo Roma gives the same website, villae.cultura.gov.it, for both villas.[7] The guide to Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa compares the two as visits.

Each is a World Heritage property in its own right. The World Heritage Committee inscribed Villa Adriana in 1999[9] and Villa d'Este in 2001.[10]

Where each site is

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, prices, booking rules or accessibility for any of these sites, and it gives no travel times or transport advice for reaching Ostia or Tivoli. XTOUR could not open the Ostia park's or the Tivoli villas' own websites when this page was checked, so it does not say which body manages them. For Rome as a base, see the Italy travel guide.