Villa Borghese

Villa Borghese is Rome's most celebrated public park, a sweeping landscape of gardens, fountains, and tree-lined avenues that stretches across the Pincian Hill above the city. Originally laid out in the early seventeenth century as the private estate of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the grounds were redesigned in the English landscape style during the late eighteenth century and opened to the Roman public in 1903. The park is home to the Galleria Borghese, one of Italy's finest collections of Baroque sculpture and painting, as well as several smaller museums, a lake, and an open-air theatre.

At present, visitors can explore the full sweep of the gardens by golf cart, a guided experience that covers the principal avenues, viewpoints, and landmarks at a comfortable pace. The route takes in the formal terraces, the Piazza di Siena riding ground, and the panoramic terrace overlooking Piazza del Popolo and the rooftops of Rome, offering a perspective on the park that is difficult to appreciate on foot alone.