Trastevere Neighbourhood

Trastevere means literally 'across the Tiber,' and the district's identity as somewhere apart from central Rome goes back to antiquity — in Roman times this was where sailors, foreign immigrants and the working poor lived, a genuinely separate social world from the political heart of the city on the other bank. That slightly outsider identity has persisted in different forms ever since, through a long stretch as a working-class artisan quarter into its current life as Rome's most beloved neighbourhood for evening dining and nightlife.

The streets themselves are the main attraction: a tangle of narrow, cobbled medieval lanes largely untouched by the broad boulevard-building that reshaped much of central Rome in the 19th and 20th centuries, lined with ochre and terracotta buildings, laundry strung between windows, and a genuinely lived-in feel that's increasingly rare in Europe's most-visited historic centres. Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, anchored by its ancient basilica and octagonal Baroque fountain, functions as the neighbourhood's social hub day and night.