Frascati

Castelli Romani hill town above Rome, known for Renaissance villas, broad views, and Frascati white wine.

Frascati is the most visited of the Castelli Romani hill towns, perched in the Alban Hills about 20 kilometres south-east of Rome. It has been a retreat from the city heat since ancient times — the Romans called the area Tusculanum — and the legacy is a string of Renaissance and Baroque villas with extraordinary gardens. Today it is best known for its white wine, Frascati DOC, which you can drink directly from the source.

The heart of town is Piazza Marconi, with long views down across the Roman plain. From here it is a short walk to the Duomo, to Villa Aldobrandini (the most spectacular of the hillside villas, designed by Giacomo della Porta in 1598), and to the backstreet fraschette where locals still fill demijohns from the barrel. The Porta Porticella market is a good spot to pick up bread, cheese, and cured meats for a picnic.

The best time to visit is during the Sagra dell'Uva in October, when the town celebrates the grape harvest with processions, free wine flowing through a fountain on the piazza, and general good cheer. But Frascati is worth a trip any time — it is an easy and very pleasant half-day from Rome by train.

Guide

Bars and Cafes

Frascati's drinking culture is organised around the fraschette — simple, no-frills wine bars that pour local DOC white wine by the carafe. The tradition is old and stubbornly unchanged: you sit at a plain table, the wine arrives cold from the barrel, and you bring your own bread and cheese or buy basic snacks from the bar. Some of the best fraschette are tucked into the backstreets below the main piazza. This is not a place for cocktail menus.

Guide

Getting There

Frascati is one of the easiest day trips from Rome. Regional trains run directly from Roma Termini roughly every half hour; the journey takes about 30 minutes and costs a few euros. The station is a short walk downhill from the centre. Driving is straightforward via the Via Tuscolana (SS 215), but parking in the historic centre can be awkward, and the train is faster.

Guide

Things to Do

Frascati's appeal is compact and walkable. The centre holds two of the finest Baroque villas in the Castelli Romani, a handsome cathedral, and the fraschette wine bars that have been serving carafe wine since the town's name meant anything at all. The panoramic terrace on Piazza Marconi frames Rome on the horizon, twenty kilometres away across the plain.