Villa Borghese Gardens and the Pincio Terrace

Park · Pincio / Villa Borghese (Campo Marzio–Pinciano)Rome,Italy

Rome's central park of pines and avenues, ending in a terrace cut to be looked at from the oval square below it.

Villa Borghese is Rome's central park, about eighty hectares of pines and avenues above Piazza del Popolo, and it ends in the Pincio terrace. Stand at the parapet and the oval square lies directly beneath you, with the dome of St Peter's low on the skyline beyond the rooftops. Giuseppe Valadier cut the balcony after 1809 and designed it together with the square below as one composition, so the people leaning on it are part of the view from down there. At sunset the parapet is three people deep. Behind it the park runs on, crossed by roads that cars still use, and Romans come for the grass around Piazza di Siena, the rowing boats on the lake and the zoo at the far end. It was one family's private garden for three centuries. Cardinal Scipione Borghese began laying it out in 1606 in straight avenues with fountains and a walled bird house, and in the 1780s a descendant remade much of it in the English fashion.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Take the terrace at breakfast time — the gravel is being raked, there is room to lean on the parapet, and the low sun is behind you, lighting the far façades instead of glaring into your eyes.
Winter puts the sunset behind St Peter's — From here the sun goes down behind the dome between late November and late January. In midsummer it drops far right, over Monte Mario.
Keep walking east to reach the real park — the balcony is the small formal end of a much larger garden, and within a few minutes the paths open into lawns, long avenues and the lake.
The quiet is on the paths between the roads — Cars drive and park along the main avenues through the grounds, so anyone expecting a closed garden should get off them early.
The wooded interior empties when the light goes — Paths near the terrace and the gates stay busy and lit into the evening, but deeper in the trees block the street lights.

Things to do

1
Climb Valadier's ramps and turn around at the top
Start down in Piazza del Popolo and look up at the pale stone railing on the hill above the trees. Then take the ramped paths that curl up the slope instead of the steps. At the top, turn round and look back: you are standing on the terrace you were looking up at from the square.
2
Row out to the temple on the lake
The lake sits deep in the park, with a small Greek-style temple on its island. Rowing boats go out in fair weather, and you do the rowing yourself. Push off and the bank drops out of sight, the water goes quiet, and the temple front lines up between the trees exactly as the garden's designers intended.
3
Read the names under the broken heads
Two rows of stone heads on square plinths line the Pincio promenade. Walk it slowly and read the names cut into the plinths: poets, soldiers, scientists, and plenty you will not recognise. Look for the plinths standing empty, and for noses replaced in marble slightly whiter than the face.