Prati

Straight lines and grown-ups

Where the centro is medieval chaos, Prati is nineteenth-century planning: right angles, wide pavements, plane trees, and buildings tall enough to throw real shade in August. That last point sounds minor until your fourth day in a Roman summer.

It's a working professional district. The courts are here, so are the lawyers, and the bar at eight in the morning is full of people standing at the counter downing a caffè before work rather than sitting down to photograph it. Which raises a useful piece of local arithmetic: standing at the bar, an espresso is about €1.20. Sitting at a table, the same coffee can be €4.50 or more. This is legal, posted, and universal. It is not a scam, it's just how it works, and knowing it saves you money every single day.

Via Cola di Rienzo is the spine, a kilometre of mid-range shopping running from the river towards the Vatican, and it's where Romans from other districts come. Considerably less punishing than Via del Corso.

The one part of central Rome with a decent metro

Prati fills the bend of the Tiber north of the Vatican, between Castel Sant'Angelo and the Musei Vaticani.

Line A actually serves it, which is unusual here. Ottaviano for St Peter's and the museums, Lepanto for the middle of the district, Flaminio across the river for Piazza del Popolo.

And the walk into the centro is genuinely short: over Ponte Sant'Angelo, past the castle, and you're at Piazza Navona in about fifteen minutes. A metro line and a fifteen-minute walk to the middle of everything is a combination almost nowhere else in Rome offers.

Eat five minutes further north

The streets immediately around the Vatican are among the worst places to eat in the city. Captive audience, no repeat custom, nobody's reputation on the line. Walk five minutes into Prati proper and it changes entirely.

Pizzarium Bonci on Via della Meloria is the destination. Pizza al taglio, sold by weight, cut with scissors, toppings changing through the day, and no seating whatsoever — you eat it standing on the pavement like everyone else. Gabriele Bonci more or less rewrote what Roman pizza al taglio could be, using long fermentation and stupidly good ingredients. It's a short walk from the museum exit and worth planning around.

Dal Toscano on Via Germanico does Tuscan grilling over coals in a proper white-tablecloth room, which is a useful corrective after four consecutive days of pasta.

Gelateria Old Bridge by the Vatican walls has been handing generous cones to people staggering out of the museums since long before that counted as a business strategy.

Who it suits

Families, light sleepers, anyone travelling with more luggage than sense, and anyone who has decided that a good night's sleep beats a picturesque view.

Rooms are bigger than the centro because the buildings are a couple of hundred years younger. Prices are lower. The metro is a real option rather than a theoretical one. You can walk to both the Vatican and the historic centre. At night it is quiet, well lit and completely unremarkable, in the best sense of that word.

What you give up is atmosphere. Nobody photographs Prati. If stepping out of the door into something medieval is the point of your trip, stay in Monti or the centro and accept the trade.