What to Actually Do in Rome, Not Just See
Ask a Roman what to do in the city, not what to see, and cooking, wine and the Appian Way come up long before another museum queue. This page is about the participation half of a Rome trip: things you do with your hands, not things you photograph.
Market to kitchen
Mercato Testaccio is a working market, generational stallholders and all, and walking it while tasting supplì, porchetta and pizza al taglio directly from vendors is an activity in itself. Most cooking-class operators build the same market visit into a 3-4 hour session, then teach cacio e pepe, carbonara or hand-rolled tonnarelli, typically €70-120 a head. Book a pasta class with a market stop covers that exact format. Devour Tours runs its own dedicated Testaccio market walk for anyone who wants the tasting without the stove; check current dates at devourtours.com .
A glass before or after
Rome’s enotecas, Il Goccetto and Cul de Sac among them, run both casual by-the-glass sessions and bookable sommelier-led tastings of Lazio wines: Frascati whites and Castelli Romani reds, usually paired with a cheese or cured-meat board. It is a lower-commitment activity than a full cooking class and fits easily either side of a market visit.
Train like a gladiator
Scuola Gladiatori Roma, based near the Appian Way and run by the Gruppo Storico Romano re-enactment group, holds fixed 2-hour sessions daily at 9am, 11am, 3pm and 5pm, teaching basic combat forms with wooden or rubber weapons under instructors in full historical kit. A separate 90-minute evening show, staged combat and Vestal rites under lights, runs Friday evenings only, late May through late September, and is a different booking from the daytime class. Reserve a gladiator training slot shows current times; the group’s own site, gsr-roma.com , has the background.
For fans, not just historians
A roughly 45-minute Stadio Olimpico tour takes in both AS Roma’s and S.S. Lazio’s dressing rooms, the players’ tunnel, and an on-site trophy museum, priced from about $21-64 depending on the package. Book the Stadio Olimpico tour has current combo options with Foro Italico. Cinecittà Studios, open daily except Tuesday, lets visitors walk the actual standing backlot sets, an Ancient Rome street, a Baroque piazza, used across decades of Italian film and television, alongside a costume and props museum. Current hours and the roughly €15 adult admission sit at cinecitta.com .
The Wednesday audience
When the Pope is in Rome, the weekly General Audience in St Peter’s Square is free but requires an advance ticket through the Vatican website or a diocese office, and it comes at a cost: St Peter’s Basilica itself is closed to regular tourist visits that morning.
Build the day around timing, not distance: a market-and-cooking morning pairs naturally with an afternoon gladiator session, since both run on fixed slots rather than walk-up availability. Our walking tours guide covers the Appian Way stretch on foot if you want to see the ground the gladiator school trains on.