A self-guided audio walk through the old center of Rome, from the ruins where Julius Caesar was stabbed to the foot of the Spanish Steps. It asks one question along the way: what did Rome choose to keep in sight, what did it bury, and whose name ended up on the stone? You will look down on the remains of the hall the Senate walled up after the murder, meet the battered statue that mocked popes for three centuries, stand in a square that is still the shape of an emperor’s stadium and hear why the famous Bernini and Borromini story cannot be true, read the name on the Pantheon and learn why it belongs to a man who never saw the building, stand outside the convent where Galileo knelt, find a temple whose columns have housed customs officers, stockbrokers and the Chamber of Commerce, pass the palace where Italy is governed, watch water that has run into Rome since 19 BC fill the Trevi Fountain, and end under the window where John Keats died. Everything is told from public streets and squares; going into the Pantheon or any church is optional and separate, and no tickets are sold or bundled. Ancient accounts are credited to their authors and every legend is labeled.

The stops

1. Largo di Torre Argentina: The Room Rome Walled Up
2. Pasquino: The Statue That Talked Back
3. Piazza Navona: A Stadium Turned Square
4. The Pantheon: Another Man’s Name
5. Piazza della Minerva: The Elephant and the Trial
6. Piazza di Pietra: A Temple Full of Office Workers
7. Piazza Colonna: From Popes to Prime Ministers
8. The Trevi Fountain: Agrippa’s Water
9. Piazza di Spagna: A Name Writ in Water

Finding the start

Start at Largo di Torre Argentina (tram 8 and many buses stop here). Stand at the railing on the west side of the square, on Via di San Nicola de’ Cesarini, looking east down into the sunken ruins.

Terrain and access

About 2.9 kilometers, flat and step-free on sampietrini cobbles, lanes and squares; some narrow lanes are shared with slow cars. Crossings with lights at Largo di Torre Argentina and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, zebra crossings over Corso del Rinascimento and Via del Corso, and the busy Via del Tritone. Very crowded at Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain and Piazza di Spagna; keep bags closed. No admissions; every building is seen from outside, and the Spanish Steps are seen from the square (climbing them is optional). The walk ends about 150 meters from the Spagna metro (line A).

Tickets

No church, museum or ticketed area needs to be entered; the walk ends at the foot of the Spanish Steps, about 150 meters from the Spagna metro.

The Pantheon is a church and a state museum with paid entry, a dress code and silence inside; going in is optional and not part of this walk.

Entering the area by the basin is a separate paid ticket in the daytime for non-residents and not part of this walk.

Keep going

• Ancient Rome from the Outside: Colosseum to Circus Maximus

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com 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.

Image credits

• Photo: Nicholas Gemini, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Arbormas, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Photo: Acediscovery, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: George M. Groutas, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Dudva, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The post The Heart of Rome: From Caesar’s Murder to the Spanish Steps appeared first on The3DTravel.

This walk is told entirely from outside the paid archaeological park of the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine: you do not go inside, no ticket is needed, and none is sold or bundled. Use it before or after a visit inside, or instead of one. From Piazza del Colosseo you will hear how an amphitheater rose on Nero’s private lake, and who paid for it, then read the Arch of Constantine and its borrowed statues, stand over the forums where Augustus built a temple for revenge and Mussolini cut a road, follow a war up Trajan’s Column, stop outside the cell where Rome strangled its enemies, look down from the Capitol on the place where a crowd burned Caesar’s body, meet the bronze emperor who, the usual story goes, survived because people took him for someone else, stand under the cliff of the traitors, find the twins and the wolf in legend at the foot of the Palatine, and end in the Circus Maximus, where Tacitus says the fire of 64 began, near the Circo Massimo metro. The ancient writers are quoted by name, every legend is labeled, and every claim is sourced.

The stops

1. The Colosseum: A Tyrant’s Lake for the People
2. The Arch of Constantine: A Battle at a Bridge
3. The Emperors’ Forums: A Temple for Revenge, a Road for a Dictator
4. Trajan’s Column: A War in a Spiral
5. The Mamertine Prison: The Cell Under the Capitol
6. The Forum from the Capitol: Where the Crowd Burned Caesar
7. Marcus Aurelius: The Emperor Saved by Another Name
8. The Tarpeian Rock: The Cliff and the Traitors
9. Via di San Teodoro: The Twins and the Wolf
10. The Circus Maximus: Chariots, Crowds and the Fire

Finding the start

Start on Piazza del Colosseo at the Colosseo metro station (line B, and Colosseo-Fori Imperiali on line C). Come up to the street and stand on the open paving between the metro exits and the west end of the Colosseum, facing the Colosseum.

Terrain and access

About 3.4 kilometers, mostly on sidewalks, squares and cobbled lanes, ending on gravel and grass in the Circus Maximus park. One climb of about 17 meters to the Capitol, with steps between stops 5 and 6 (a step-free way by Via delle Tre Pile is described, to be checked on site), and a cobbled, fairly steep descent on Via di Monte Tarpeo. Busy crossings with lights on Via dei Fori Imperiali, at Piazza Venezia, on Via della Consolazione and on Via dei Cerchi. Very little shade: carry water in summer. No admissions; every monument is seen from outside. The walk ends about 350 meters from the Circo Massimo metro station (line B), one stop from Colosseo.

Tickets

No admission is needed.

Keep going

• Rome After Dark
• Inside the Ring: One Square Mile That Ran an Empire

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com 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.

Image credits

• Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1776; CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Unknown photographer, ca. 1855 – ca. 1870; CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872; public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• Eugène Constant, 1848 to 52; CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
• Giovanni Battista Piranesi, circa 1748; CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The post Ancient Rome from the Outside: Colosseum to Circus Maximus appeared first on The3DTravel.

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

1. The Fountain Built in a Night
2. The Cenci Palace: A Daughter Behind Barred Windows
3. Campo de’ Fiori: 17 February 1600
4. Piazza Farnese: The Pope Who Built the Tribunal
5. The Brotherhood of the Dead
6. The Carceri Nuove: A Gentler Prison
7. The Chiesa Nuova: A Fountain Evicted for a Heretic
8. Tor di Nona: From Prison to Opera House
9. Piazza di Ponte: 11 September 1599
10. 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 tours@the3dtravel.com 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.

Image credits

• Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Lalupa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Lalupa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Lalupa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)

The post Rome After Dark appeared first on The3DTravel.