Science Travel

Getting there

The FL4 regional line runs from Rome via Ciampino, where its branches split towards Frascati, Albano and Velletri. Check current timetables with Trenitalia before you travel. The research campus of INFN-LNF, ESRIN and ENEA lies on the slopes just outside the town centre.

Three days, three themes

Day 1 · Particles and the town

A guided tour at INFN-LNF (arranged in advance through the laboratories), then Frascati itself: Villa Aldobrandini and the Museo Tuscolano in its former stables.

Day 2 · Time and the sky

Villa Mondragone, where the Gregorian calendar reform was promulgated, Astrolab at the Rome Astronomical Observatory in Monte Porzio Catone, and the ruins of Tusculum.

Day 3 · Lakes and telescopes

Castel Gandolfo above Lake Albano, home of the Vatican Observatory (check with the Vatican Museums whether dome visits are running), then the Museum of the Roman Ships on Lake Nemi.

Opening hours, booking rules and prices change. Confirm each visit on the official page linked below.

Places to visit

We group the places by theme. Each card links to the official page, where you will find current opening hours and booking rules.

Laboratories and observatories

The science half of the trip: a particle physics laboratory, two observatories and a geophysics museum, all within a short drive of each other.

• INFN-LNF visitor centre

  Guided tours, a visitor centre and a virtual tour of the laboratories. Arrange visits through the laboratories' website.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Astrolab (INAF-OAR)

  Interactive astronomy lab of the Rome Astronomical Observatory in Monte Porzio Catone, open to the public and school groups.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Specola Vaticana domes, Castel Gandolfo

  The Vatican Museums have offered guided visits to the observatory domes on the Papal Palace and the historic telescopes. Check the Vatican Museums for current availability.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Museo Geofisico di Rocca di Papa

  In the building of the geodynamic observatory founded in 1889 by the seismologist Michele Stefano De Rossi, which worked here until 1931. Since 2005 a museum run with INGV, Italy's national institute of geophysics and volcanology: models, films and seismic instruments showing live data explain how scientists worked out the Earth's interior – fitting for a town that stands on the Alban Hills volcano.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

Villas and the calendar

Frascati is known for its villas, the Tusculan villas. In one of them, Villa Mondragone, the Gregorian calendar reform began.

• Villa Aldobrandini

  One of the Tusculan villas of Frascati; the Museo Tuscolano in its former stables shows wooden models of ten of them.

  OpenStreetMap

• Villa Torlonia

  Now a public park owned by the town. The palace was flattened in the bombing of Frascati on 8 September 1943, but the park, fountains, staircases and Carlo Maderno's water theatre survive – a piece of early 17th-century hydraulic engineering, now without its statues.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Villa Mondragone

  Where Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the bull Inter gravissimas that started the Gregorian calendar reform. Owned since 1981 by the University of Rome Tor Vergata as its event and congress centre.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

Archaeology and museums

• Museo Tuscolano – Scuderie Aldobrandini

  Museum in the villa's former stables, restored to a design by Massimiliano Fuksas, with many finds from Tusculum.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Parco Archeologico Culturale di Tuscolo

  Remains of Tusculum, destroyed in 1191: a theatre from the 1st century BC, the forum area, walls and a medieval fortress on the acropolis.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

• Museo delle Navi Romane, Nemi

  Built to house two enormous barges of the Emperor Caligula (37–41 CE), recovered from the lake between 1929 and 1931 and destroyed by fire in 1944. The other wing covers the people and places of worship around Lake Albano, including the sanctuary of Diana at Nemi.

  Website · OpenStreetMap

Lakes and volcanoes

Frascati lies on the slopes of an old volcano. Its craters now hold the lakes of Albano and Nemi.

• Parco Regionale dei Castelli Romani

  Regional park established in 1984, about 15,000 hectares across 16 municipalities, with the volcanic lakes Albano and Nemi.

  OpenStreetMap

Where to stay

If you want quiet evenings and short trips to the labs, stay in Frascati or one of the other Castelli Romani towns. If you prefer the city, stay in Rome and take the regional train. We will add places to stay and bookable visits here once we have checked them.

Where to go next

Three routes of the TheScience.fm Atlas stop in Frascati. If you enjoyed the accelerators, the space centres or the history of R&D statistics, these are the cities to visit next.

• Big Machines via Frascati

  Large research machines for particles, photons and plasma.

  Stops: Grenoble.science → Geneva.science → Lausanne.science → Villigen.science → Frascati.science

• Space via Frascati

  Space agencies, mission centres and the people who build spacecraft.

  Stops: Pasadena.science → Noordwijk.science → Bonn.science → Frascati.science

• Concept Cities via Frascati

  Cities tied to ideas about how science is judged, funded and measured. Frascati gave its name to the rules for counting R&D.

  Stops: Lyon.science → Bonn.science → Bologna.science → Frascati.science

• Swiss Model

  How Switzerland organises research, from CERN's host city to its federal institutes.

  Stops: Geneva.science → Lausanne.science → Villigen.science → Zuerich.science

Open the atlas →