Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona is the most elegant square in Rome, and its unusual elongated shape is no accident: it sits directly on the footprint of the Stadium of Domitian, built in AD 86 for Greek-style athletic games. The medieval city grew up around the stadium's grandstands, preserving the arena as open space. Remains of the original structure can still be visited beneath the square's northern end.

The centrepiece is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers, unveiled in 1651: four colossal marble figures personifying the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile and the Rio de la Plata recline beneath an ancient Egyptian-style obelisk. Facing it rises the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone by Borromini, Bernini's great rival, and the square is bookended by the Fontana del Moro and the Fountain of Neptune.

By day the piazza belongs to painters, portrait artists and street performers; by night the baroque facades are floodlit and the cafe terraces fill. In December the square hosts Rome's traditional Christmas market. The surrounding lanes hide some of the centre's best food and coffee, and the museum of Palazzo Altemps, with its superb ancient sculpture collection, stands just north of the square.

There is no metro stop in this pedestrian quarter: Piazza Navona is a five-minute walk from the Pantheon and Campo de' Fiori, and about fifteen minutes from the Vatican across the river. Early morning offers the square at its most serene, when the fountains murmur to nearly empty cobbles.

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