What to do in Rome on a Sunday afternoon without long queues

September 08, 2026

Less crowded museums, archaeological sites and outdoor walks: seven ideas for spending a Sunday afternoon in Rome while avoiding attractions where waiting times can be longer.

Spending a Sunday afternoon in Rome without spending hours in queues is possible, especially if you choose small museums, less crowded archaeological sites and outdoor walks. In the historic centre, there are several alternatives to the city’s most famous attractions, including art collections and smaller museums. Away from the centre, you can walk along the Appian Way, visit the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella or admire ancient Roman aqueducts surrounded by greenery. Neighbourhoods such as Ostiense and Trastevere also offer interesting museums that can easily be combined with a walk. On Sundays, opening hours are generally long enough to organise the afternoon without rushing. However, it is always worth checking for any changes before setting out and remembering that the first Sunday of the month can be busier at state museums and archaeological sites taking part in the free admission initiative.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Visit Centrale Montemartini
• Discover Borromini’s perspective at Galleria Spada
• Visit the Barracco Museum in central Rome
• Walk along the Appian Way and visit the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella
• Discover the Museum of Rome in Trastevere
• Walk through the Park of the Aqueducts
• Visit the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition

Visit Centrale Montemartini

For a Sunday afternoon dedicated to art and archaeology, you can leave the busiest areas of the historic centre and head to the Ostiense district, where you will find Centrale Montemartini. The building was originally constructed in the early 20th century as a power station and today houses part of the Capitoline Museums’ collections.

What makes the museum particularly distinctive is the juxtaposition of two completely different periods, allowing visitors to discover both Roman archaeology and the city’s industrial history through the display of statues, mosaics and artefacts from ancient Rome alongside turbines, diesel engines and other large industrial machinery.

Centrale Montemartini is open on Sundays from 9 am to 7 pm, with last admission one hour before closing, making it a good option for an afternoon visit. After exploring the museum, you can take advantage of its location to continue with a walk around the Ostiense district.

Discover Borromini’s perspective at Galleria Spada

Still in the historic centre, not far from Campo de’ Fiori, is Galleria Spada, which houses an art collection assembled mainly by Cardinals Bernardino and Fabrizio Spada, with paintings by Guido Reni, Guercino, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, as well as other leading figures of 17th-century painting.

One of the surprises of the visit can be found in the Secret Garden: the famous Perspective Gallery designed by Francesco Borromini, an optical illusion in which progressively smaller columns, a rising floor and a descending vault make the corridor appear much longer than it actually is.

On Sundays, the Gallery is open from 8:30 am to 7:30 pm, with the last ticket issued at 7 pm, and individual visitors are not required to book in advance.

Visit the Barracco Museum in central Rome

Between Piazza Navona and Campo de’ Fiori is a small museum that can easily be included in a Sunday walk through the centre: the Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture, housed in the 16th-century Farnesina ai Baullari.

The collection offers a journey through the civilisations of the Mediterranean and the Near East, with Egyptian, Assyrian, Cypriot, Phoenician, Etruscan, Greek and Roman works collected by Giovanni Barracco in the 19th century and later donated to the city.

Thanks to its relatively small size, the museum is perfect for including in a walking itinerary between Campo de’ Fiori, Piazza Navona and the streets of the historic centre on a Sunday afternoon in Rome. On Sundays, it is open from 10 am to 6 pm, with last admission 45 minutes before closing. However, anyone wishing to visit the Roman House in the underground area should check its specific opening dates, which are announced separately.

Walk along the Appian Way and visit the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella

On a sunny Sunday that is not particularly hot, a good alternative to museums is to spend a few hours along the Appian Way, combining a walk through the archaeological landscape with a visit to one of the monuments along the ancient Roman road.

One of these is the Mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, a large funerary monument built between the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD and later incorporated into the Castrum Caetani. The visit can therefore become one stop on a longer itinerary along the Appian Way, without having to spend the entire afternoon inside a single site.

The site can be visited from Tuesday to Sunday, although opening hours vary throughout the year: from 1 April to 30 September it closes at 7:15 pm, in October and March at 6:30 pm, and during the winter months at 4:30 pm. Since 1 July 2026, a day ticket with no reservation required has also been available for the Mausoleum, and last admission is half an hour before closing.

Discover the Museum of Rome in Trastevere

Another idea for a Sunday afternoon in Rome without long queues is to combine a visit to the Museum of Rome in Trastevere, housed in the former convent of Sant’Egidio, with a walk through this fascinating neighbourhood.

The museum mainly explores aspects of everyday life and Roman popular culture between the 18th and 20th centuries through paintings, prints, photographs, watercolours and reconstructions of historic interiors, and it often hosts temporary exhibitions dedicated to photography.

The museum opens at 10 am and remains open until 8 pm, making it convenient to visit even in the late afternoon, before or after a walk through the neighbourhood’s squares, narrow streets and churches.

Walk through the Park of the Aqueducts

Anyone who wants to spend Sunday afternoon entirely outdoors can visit the Park of the Aqueducts, part of the Appia Antica Regional Park and the setting for one of Rome’s most impressive walks.

Here, the landscape is crossed by the imposing arches of the aqueducts that supplied the city with water for centuries, and the walk offers a close-up view of a fundamental aspect of Roman engineering without having to follow a museum itinerary. Meadows and paths also make it possible to decide freely how long to extend the visit.

It is particularly suitable for Sundays with good weather and eliminates the problem of queues altogether, as there is no ticket office for walking through the park.

Visit the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition

Back in the heart of the historic centre, just a few steps from Campo de’ Fiori and Piazza Navona, you can visit the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition inside Palazzo della Cancelleria.

This cultural experience, an alternative to the city’s major museums, explores the inventions, studies and interests of the Renaissance genius through working machines built from the drawings contained in Leonardo’s codices and other areas of his research, from mechanics and flight to hydraulics, anatomy and botany, showing how closely art, observation of nature and experimentation were interconnected.

The visit also holds a surprise beneath Palazzo della Cancelleria, where visitors can see the tomb of Aulus Hirtius, Roman consul and lieutenant of Julius Caesar who died at the Battle of Mutina in 43 BC. The funerary monument is partly submerged in the waters of the ancient Euripus, which once crossed the Campus Martius.

Its location also makes it easy to include the Exhibition in an afternoon in central Rome, combining it with a walk around Campo de’ Fiori, Piazza Navona and the Pantheon without having to organise the entire day around the visit.

You can read the Italian version of this article here >