San Saba: the village above the Baths of Caracalla
A quiet garden-city pocket, the vast brick Baths, and the long green edge of the Circus Maximus. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Circus Maximus
Start at the long grassy hollow where the chariots raced. There's almost nothing built left — that's the point. Walk the rim and let the scale land; a quarter of a million Romans once watched from these slopes.

2. Piazza Bernini, San Saba
Climb up into the little garden-city quarter laid out for railway workers a century ago — low houses, gardens, a calm square. It feels nothing like the rest of central Rome, which is exactly why to come up here.

3. San Saba church
The medieval church the neighbourhood is named for, on its quiet terrace. Cosmatesque floor, an old loggia, a thirteenth-century fresco or two. You'll likely have it to yourself; that's the trade for the climb.

4. Viale Giotto and the garden streets
Wind down the eastern side of the hill through the leafy residential streets toward the Baths. Umbrella pines, parked Vespas, washing on the line. A neighbourhood that doesn't perform.

5. Baths of Caracalla
The set piece — colossal brick walls of a third-century bathing complex that held over a thousand bathers. Walk the perimeter for the scale even without a ticket; inside, fragments of the mosaic floors survive. Opera is staged here in summer.

6. Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
Walk back north up the broad pine-lined avenue, the Baths on one side and the green slope of the Aventine on the other. It carries you straight back to Circo Massimo Metro.

San Saba: the village above the Baths of Caracalla