North of the centre the city climbs into hills, and on the hills sit Parioli and Villa Ada — the most expensive postcode in Rome and one of its largest parks, side by side. This is the leafy walk, longer than most, and it trades monuments for shade, birdsong and the quiet of a neighbourhood that keeps to itself.
Start at Piazza Ungheria with a coffee, then walk the avenues — Viale Liegi and the streets of villini, the garden villas where embassies and old money hide behind hedges. The shade barely breaks. Enter Villa Ada by the Salaria gate, where the Savoy kings once lived, and head into the pines until the traffic fades out.
The lake is the middle of it: turtles on the logs, herons at first light, a circuit that takes ten unhurried minutes. On the western edge the Catacombe di Priscilla hold some of the earliest images of the Madonna, by guided visit only. Come back through the southern meadows — the Roma Incontra il Mondo stage stands here in summer — and walk down to Bologna to finish.
