Rome’s Crowds Aren’t the Whole Story: Italy’s Hidden Gems

The byword for tourism for the next decade should be “spread out.”

As we heard from Italy’s minister of tourism at this year’s WTTC summit in Rome, Italy isn’t over touristed. Rome is over touristed. Florence is over touristed. And above all, Venice is over touristed. 

But that, by her calculation, is just 4% of her country, by some metrics, the most popular tourist destination on the continent.

The same goes for France, Spain, Portugal…

For the longest time, I thought this meant going to ever more far-flung places, and amazing under visited spots like Senegal and Moldova, Albania and Laos.

I still do.

But to this, I’m adding easier options for those not quite ready to take the leap into the great unknown.

Like, how about a 45-minute drive out of Rome?

Overtourism is such a specialized and targeted phenomenon that this is usually all it takes.

After hearing Minister Santanche speak, I accepted ENIT, the national tourist board's invitation to visit Castel Gandolfo, located 45 minutes southeast of Rome.

The summit took place in early October, which is the new highest of high season for Roman tourism. The usual spots were packed. The lineup to get into St Peter’s Basilica was uncountably long, and for the Vatican Museum, even longer. (For those who have not visited Rome or Vatican City for a while, one does not simply walk into St. Peter’s anymore; there are barriers and snaking lines, and possibly orcs.)

But after that 45-minute drive, much of which was along a very pleasant and peaceful lakeshore, we got to Castel Gandolfo, summer home of the popes, but open to the public.

It’s beautiful.

 

(Photo Credit: Bert Archer)

The grounds are meticulously landscaped, the paths engineered for papal unwinding. There’s even a little village that’s sprung up around it since Pope Urban VIII first started summering there in the 1620s.

And since he built it on the spot where the Roman emperor Domitian built his villa in the first century CE, you can also get your Roman ruins hit here too (with a side of delightful irony, since Domitian was the emperor who was most antagonistic towards the early Christians, feeding them to lions and whatnot).

I could wax poetic about the grounds, but why not just take a look at the pictures instead.

It’s €12 to enter (€5 for kids and students), and there are higher rates if you’d like a guide, or a guide with a golf cart. There’s a 40-minute train from Roma Termini (with an approximately 15-minute uphill walk from there to the grounds), or a bus that takes longer but gets you closer to the entrance. Or you can drive. Even a taxi or Uber would cost under €100, which, if you’re three or four people, is not that different a rate from taking the more apparently economical options.

(Photo Credit: Bert Archer)

And if that all weren’t enough, this is still the Pope’s playground. They don’t close it when he’s in residence, and I was told by the staff there that, every once in a while, people will just see the Pope strolling around. In fact, on my way out, Leo XIV’s motorcade whizzed by me. He’d apparently been there the whole time I was. Fun!

You don’t get that at the Trevi Fountain.

Or the Vatican Museum, for that matter.

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