The Orange Garden

At the top of the slope you'll find a walled garden full of bitter orange trees, with a terrace that looks out across the whole city.

The walls around it are what remains of a fortress that the Savelli family built here in the thirteenth century, on top of an even older stronghold. In 1932 the city turned it into a park, laying out a crisp rectangle of trees with a viewing terrace along the edge.

From that terrace you can see the bend of the Tiber, the domes of half the city and, straight ahead, St Peter's Basilica. Early in the morning mist often hangs in the valley, and towards sunset the whole city glows orange.

The name comes from the trees, and they go back to a story about Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican order, who is said to have lived in the monastery next door in the thirteenth century and to have planted the first orange tree in Italy there. In the monastery garden there still stands a tree that's pointed out as its descendant.

We leave the garden on the north side and carry on a short way until we reach the church with the open porch on our right.