A sunken field of ruins with a round temple base and tall standing columns, apartment houses and a medieval tower beyond.

Tuff blocks and brick walls with fallen column drums and a pine trunk below a glass and stone parapet.

A worn marble torso with a battered head on a stone pedestal covered with pinned papers.

A large baroque fountain with marble river gods on rocks and a lit basin, a domed church behind.

A small marble elephant wearing a fringed saddle cloth, carrying a slim obelisk, against a blue sky.

City classics, Rome

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

Name: The Heart of Rome: From Caesar's Murder to the Spanish Steps
SKU: 278

$18.95 per tour

A murdered dictator, a statue that mocked popes, a stadium turned square, a temple that kept another man’s name, a scientist made to kneel, a two-thousand-year-old aqueduct and a poet who asked for no name, from Largo Argentina to the Spanish Steps

Categories: City classics, Rome

Phones: 2 included, extra phones $2.95 each
Length: About 85 minutes
Distance: About 2.9 km (1.8 mi)
Stops: 9
Effort: Easy
Starts at: Curia di Pompeo
Ends at: Piazza di Spagna
Language: English

Content advisory: Families are welcome; the first stop tells the murder of Julius Caesar from the ancient accounts (stabbing, without gore), and one stop tells of Galileo questioned under the threat of torture.

This is a self-guided smartphone experience. No human guide will meet you.

Start when you want, pause whenever you like, explore side streets, and go at your own pace.

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Description

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

Largo di Torre Argentina: The Room Rome Walled Up
Pasquino: The Statue That Talked Back
Piazza Navona: A Stadium Turned Square
The Pantheon: Another Man’s Name
Piazza della Minerva: The Elephant and the Trial
Piazza di Pietra: A Temple Full of Office Workers
Piazza Colonna: From Popes to Prime Ministers
The Trevi Fountain: Agrippa’s Water
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 [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.