Spanish Steps
Monumento Nazionale; Within The UNESCO Historic Centre Of Rome (1980) · Rome, Lazio
A travertine staircase of about a hundred and thirty-five steps climbing from Piazza di Spagna to the church of Trinita dei Monti, built between 1723 and 1725 on a French diplomat's bequest and designed by Francesco de Sanctis as a piece of stagecraft rather than a thoroughfare. It fans and narrows and fans again over twenty-nine metres of rise, which is why it photographs so well and why people have always sat on it. They no longer can: since 2019 Rome's urban police regulation has banned sitting, lying or eating on monumental steps, at two hundred and fifty euros, and the same regulation names this staircase specifically when it forbids dragging wheeled luggage down it. At the foot sits the Barcaccia, a fountain shaped like a half-sunk boat by Pietro Bernini, father of the more famous one. In April the steps are banked with azaleas. It is free and open at every hour, and the only time it is empty is around dawn.
Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Lazio, 00187, Italy
Open at all hours, free, every day of the year. Trinita dei Monti at the top is free and generally open from the morning to early evening, closing over lunch; the convent tour behind it runs on set days by advance booking. The Keats-Shelley House at the foot keeps museum hours, closed Sundays.