Name: Rome After Dark
SKU: 266

Rome tells wonderful legends: a fountain built in a single night to win a bride, a ghost who walks a bridge every September carrying her head. This self-guided audio walk tells them, and labels each one as a legend. Then it shows you the record, which is darker. A noble daughter shut away by a violent father, his murder, her trial and her beheading in 1599, with the pope’s family buying the confiscated estate. A philosopher burned alive in a market square in 1600, and the statue that started an election fight. A brotherhood that buried more than eight thousand of the city’s unclaimed dead. A prison built to be gentler. A prison that became an opera house. And an executioner who kept a notebook of 516 names. History, not horror: real people, named and told with care. Made for the evening on lit streets, and just as good by day. No tickets needed.

The stops

The Fountain Built in a Night
The Cenci Palace: A Daughter Behind Barred Windows
Campo de’ Fiori: 17 February 1600
Piazza Farnese: The Pope Who Built the Tribunal
The Brotherhood of the Dead
The Carceri Nuove: A Gentler Prison
The Chiesa Nuova: A Fountain Evicted for a Heretic
Tor di Nona: From Prison to Opera House
Piazza di Ponte: 11 September 1599
Ponte Sant’Angelo: The Executioner’s Bridge

Finding the start

Start in Piazza Mattei, the small square with the Fontana delle Tartarughe (the Turtle Fountain), on its south-west side facing the fountain. Trams and buses stop at Largo di Torre Argentina, about four minutes’ walk to the north-west.

Terrain and access

About 2.4 kilometers from Piazza Mattei to the middle of Ponte Sant’Angelo, flat and step-free, paved almost everywhere with setts (sampietrini). Via Giulia has no sidewalks, and some lanes are narrow and shared with cars and scooters. Three crossings of busy roads: Via Arenula at the lights, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II at a marked crossing, and the Lungotevere at the head of the bridge. Lit streets throughout. Every stop is on a public street, square or bridge: no church, museum, prison or castle is entered. Made for the evening and usable by day; from May to August it is not dark until about 21:00. Several streets are quiet and residential: earbuds only, voices low. Campo de’ Fiori and the bridge are crowded late at night: mind your bag and phone.

Tickets

No tickets needed.

Keep going

The Heart of Rome: From Caesar’s Murder to the Spanish Steps

What you get

An email from [email protected] with a link and an access code.
Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.