The Best Sights.

Galleria Borghese
Address: Piazzale Scipione Borghese, 5
Phone: 39 068548577
From Insider Guide:
Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V, built this lovely villa in the early 1600s and then filled it with his artistic treasures. Being a man of wealth and taste, the collection includes masterpieces by Raphael, Coreggio, and Andrea del Sarto, plus a number of tremendous Bernini sculptures. Reservations are mandatory, and depending upon the moods of the attendants, you may be rushed around. Be sure to peer out the second-floor windows to get a good idea of what it would feel like to have your very own Baroque garden.
 

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Address: Piazza M. Cervantes (Viale delle Belle Arti)
Phone: 06 322 981
From Insider Guide:
Rome may not be known for its modern art, but this collection of mostly Italian sculpture, paintings, and art installations is a splendid mix. The lofty space provides a glorious backdrop against which to display the work of De Chirico,

Crypta Balbi
Address: Via Delle Botteghe Oscure 31, Rome, Italy
Phone: 06/39967700 Location: near Piazza Venezia Category: Museums/Galleries

Crypt of Balbus. After 20 years of excavation and restoration, these fascinating remains of a porticoed courtyard and theater built in 13 BC, now part of the Museo Nazionale Romano, afford a unique look at Roman history. Rather than focus on one era, the museum peels back the layers of the site, following the latest techniques in conservation. The well-explained exhibits (with text in English and Italian) give you a tangible sense of the sweeping changes that this spot -- and Rome -- underwent from antiquity to the 20th century. A partially restored wall provides an example of what marble and tufa constructions looked like before weather took its toll and medieval builders stripped the marble off for reuse. Copies of documents and reconstructed coins and other everyday objects found in drains, rubbish dumps, and tombs are a window into the world of the people who lived and worked here over the ages. EUR4. Tues.-Sun. 9-7:45.
 

Musei Capitolini
Address: Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome, Italy
Phone: 06/39967800 or 06/67102475 Location: near Piazza Venezia Category: Museums/Galleries

The collections in the twin Museo Capitolino and Palazzo dei Conservatori were assembled by Pope Sixtus IV (1414-84), one of the earliest of the Renaissance popes. Although parts of the collection may excite only archaeologists and art historians, others contain some of the most famous pieces of classical sculpture, such as the poignant Dying Gaul, the regal Capitoline Venus, and the Exquiline Venus (identified as another Mediterranean beauty, Cleopatra herself). The delicate Marble Faun inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel of the same name. Many of the works here and in Rome's other museums were copied from Greek originals. For hundreds of years, craftsmen of ancient Rome prospered by producing exact replicas of Greek statues using a process called "pointing."

Portraiture, however, was one area in which the Romans outdid the Greeks. The hundreds of Roman busts of emperors in the Sala degli Imperatori and of philosophers in the Sala dei Filosofi of the Museo Capitolino constitute a Who's Who of the ancient world. Within these serried ranks are 48 Roman emperors, ranging from Augustus to Theodosius  (AD 346-395). On one console you'll see the handsomely austere Augustus, who "found Rome a city of brick and left it one of marble." On another rests Claudius "the stutterer," an indefatigable builder brought vividly to life in the novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1895-1985). Also in this company is Nero, one of the most notorious emperors -- though by no means the worst -- who built for himself the fabled Domus Aurea. And, of course, there are the baddies: cruel Caligula (AD 12-41) and Caracalla (AD 186-217), and the dissolute, eerily modern boy-emperor, Heliogabalus (AD 203-222).

Unlike the Greeks, whose portraits are idealized, the Romans preferred the "warts and all" school of representation. Many of the busts that have come down to us, notably that of Commodus (AD 161-192), the emperor-gladiator (found in a gallery on the upper level of the museum), are almost brutally realistic. As you leave the museum, be sure to stop in the courtyard. To the right is the original equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius that once stood in the piazza outside, restored and safely kept behind glass. At the center of the courtyard is the gigantic, reclining figure of Oceanus, found in the Roman Forum and later dubbed Marforio, one of Rome's "talking statues" to which citizens from the 1500s to the 1900s affixed anonymous satirical verses and notes of political protest. (Another talking statue still in use today sits at Piazza Pasquino, near Piazza Navona.)

The Palazzo dei Conservatori is a trove of ancient and baroque treasures. Lining the courtyard are the colossal fragments of a head, leg, foot, and hand -- all that remains of the famous statue of the emperor Constantine the Great, who believed that Rome's future lay with Christianity. These immense effigies were much in vogue in the later days of the Roman Empire. The resplendent Salone dei Orazi e Curiazi on the first floor is a ceremonial hall with a magnificent gilt ceiling, carved wooden doors, and 16th-century frescoes. At either end of the hall reign statues of the baroque era's most charismatic popes, a marble Urban VIII (1568-1644) by Bernini (1598-1680) and a bronze Innocent X (1574-1655) by Bernini's rival Algardi (1595-1654). The renowned symbol of Rome, the Capitoline Wolf, a 6th-century BC Etruscan bronze, holds a place of honor in the museum; the suckling twins were added during the Renaissance to adapt the statue to the legend of Romulus and Remus. The museum's Pinacoteca, or painting gallery, holds some of baroque painting's great masterpieces, including Caravaggio's La Buona Ventura (1595) and San Giovanni Battista (1602), Peter Paul Rubens's (1577-1640) Romulus and Remus (1614), and Pietro da Cortona's (1596-1669) sumptuous portrait of Pope Urban VIII (1627). The museum complex includes the adjacent Palazzo Caffarelli, where temporary exhibitions take place and where you can enjoy the view and refreshments on a large open terrace. Admission to the Pinacoteca is included in your ticket. www.pierreci.it. EUR6.20, free last Sun. of month. Tues.-Sun. 9-8.

Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
Address: Piazza del Collegio Romano 2, Rome, Italy
Phone: 06/6797323 Location: near Piazza Venezia Category: Museums/GalleriesCastles/Palaces

The 18th-century facade of this palazzo on Via del Corso is only a small part of a bona fide patrician palace, still home to a princely family that rents out many of its 1,000 rooms. Visit the remarkably well preserved Galleria Doria Pamphilj, a picture gallery that gives you a sense of the sumptuous surroundings of a Roman noble family and how art was once put on display: numbered paintings (the museum catalog, available from the bookshop, comes in handy) are packed onto every available wall space. Pride of place is given to the famous (and pitiless) portrait of the 17th-century Pamphilj pope Innocent X by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), but don't overlook Caravaggio's poignant Rest on the Flight into Egypt. The audio guide is by the current Doria Pamphilj prince himself and gives a fascinating personal history of the palace. www.doriapamphilj.it. Galleria Doria Pamphilj EUR7.30, includes audio guide. Fri.-Wed. 10-5.