Roma Trip Overview
This relaxed walking tour is a great chance to see all the sights of the historic center of Rome in around 3 hours.
With a local guide, you can hear the stories and anecdotes that bring these incredible sights to life.
The streets of Rome are home to some of the city’s finest art, and that is why it is often referred to as an “open air museum”.
In around 3 hours, you’ll walk the compact historic center of Rome, visiting its most iconic sights and some of the lesser-known corners with stories of their own to tell.
With small group sizes, it’s easy to interact. Furthermore, the guide sports a flag so to be always in sight. All of this so you can relax and enjoy your walking tour of Rome.
The “Rome Center” walking tour is the perfect way to get to know some of the art and history of Rome travelling at an easy pace.
Grab the opportunity to plunge yourself in the deep heart of Rome.
Additional Info
Duration: 2 hours 45 minutes
Starts: Roma, Italy
Trip Category: Cultural & Theme Tours >> Cultural Tours
Explore Roma Promoted Experiences
What to Expect When Visiting Roma, Lazio, Italy
This relaxed walking tour is a great chance to see all the sights of the historic center of Rome in around 3 hours.
With a local guide, you can hear the stories and anecdotes that bring these incredible sights to life.
The streets of Rome are home to some of the city’s finest art, and that is why it is often referred to as an “open air museum”.
In around 3 hours, you’ll walk the compact historic center of Rome, visiting its most iconic sights and some of the lesser-known corners with stories of their own to tell.
With small group sizes, it’s easy to interact. Furthermore, the guide sports a flag so to be always in sight. All of this so you can relax and enjoy your walking tour of Rome.
The “Rome Center” walking tour is the perfect way to get to know some of the art and history of Rome travelling at an easy pace.
Grab the opportunity to plunge yourself in the deep heart of Rome.
Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product
Stop At: Piazza del Popolo, 00187 Rome Italy
The tour starts from Piazza del Popolo, litterally “People’s Square”. The name actually comes from the Poplar Tree, “Populus” in latin.
Piazza del Popolo is located at the apex of a triangle of streets known as the “Trident”, and it is the grandest access to the heart of Rome. The gate through which one enters the city center is the ancient Porta Flaminia of the Aurelian Walls.
At the center of the square the Flaminio Obelisk stands. It was the first obelisk to be transferred to Rome, at the time of Augustus (in 10 B.C.), to celebrate the conquest of Egypt.
The tour continues by visiting the nearby Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, where among the other things, two paintings of Caravaggio can be admired: “The Crucifixion of St. Peter” and “The conversion of Saul”.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Spanish Steps, Piazza di Spagna, 00187 Rome Italy
After a short stroll along the fancy “Via del Babbuino”, you reach the worldwide famous “Spanish Steps”. At the beginning of the 16th century, this area was considered suburban. The square was for a long time the place of arrival and rest of the horse-drawn carriages that entered from the Flaminio Gate, the northern access point of Rome from ancient times.
The name of the square derives from the palace that was the seat of the Spanish Embassy to the Papal State and, after 1870, to the Holy See, located on the southern side of the square and dating back to 1647. The northern part of the square was instead originally called “Piazza di Francia”, because of the French properties in the area, such as the “Trinità dei Monti” area.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Trevi Fountain, Piazza di Trevi, 00187 Rome Italy
The Trevi fountain is certainly the most scenic and the best known among the fountains of Rome and is the exhibition of the Acqua Vergine, the aqueduct that Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa brought to Rome in 19 BC to feed his baths. In what will later be today’s “Piazza di Trevi”, Agrippa placed one of the minor fountains of the aqueduct, consisting of three collection tanks, side by side and leaning against a building.
In an unspecified period, but anyway from the 8th century on, as documented by an ancient Roman itinerary of the time, the aqueduct was interrupted and the “minor fountain” became the terminal fountain of the Virgin Aqueduct.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Piazza Di Pietra, P. Zza Di Pietra – Rione Campo Marzio, 00187 Rome Italy
On the way to the mighty Pantheon, you walk through Piazza di Pietra. The origin of its name is still uncertain, although it seems very likely that it comes from the fact that in this area there were many “stones” coming from the ruins of the ancient “Hadrianeum”, the temple built in honor of Emperor Hadrian, who was deified after his death by his successor Antoninus Pius in 145 AD.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Pantheon, Piazza della Rotonda, 00186 Rome Italy
The Pantheon: the temple to all the gods. This ancient roman monument is today a church, and it gives the name to the adjacent square, namely for famous circular monument of the Pantheon, the best preserved of all the monuments of ancient Rome. This is mainly explained by the donation made in 609 by the Byzantine emperor Foca to Pope Boniface IV and the subsequent transformation into a church, with the name of “S.Maria ad Martyres” (609 A.D.). The first construction, realized between 27 and 25 B.C., is due to Agrippa. Excavations carried out at the end of the nineteenth century led to the discovery, under the pronaos, of the remains of the ancient building: it seems, therefore, that the Pantheon of Agrippa was a canonical temple of rectangular shape, oriented in the opposite direction to the current one, towards the south. A second phase consists of the restoration of Domitian, after the fire of 80 AD.
Duration: 30 minutes
Stop At: Church of St. Louis of the French, Piazza San Luigi de’ Francesi, 00186 Rome Italy
On the way to Navona Square, you make a stop at the church of St. Louis of the French. The construction of the new church began in 1518, at the behest of Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici (Pope Clement VII). However, it was not completed until 1589 by Domenico Fontana. The façade, covered with travertine, is divided into two orders and five spans by means of pilasters, and it is surmounted by a triangular tympanum with the coat of arms of France. The lower order has a large portal, framed by two columns and surmounted by a broken triangular tympanum, and is flanked by two other smaller entrances and niches with statues of Charlemagne and St. Louis.
Remarkable are the works of art preserved there, such as the famous paintings by Caravaggio made between 1597 and 1602, the “Vocation of St. Matthew”, “St. Matthew and the Angel” and the “Martyrdom of St. Matthew”. The paintings belong to the full maturity of the artist and represent the highest and most complete moment of his production.
Duration: 15 minutes
Stop At: Piazza Navona, 00186 Rome Italy
The end point of your tour is in Piazza Navona, the most beautiful baroque square in Rome. It is shaped after the track of the ancient “Stadium of Domitian”, or “Circus Agonalis”. The Stadium was built by Domitian perhaps already before 86 AD to serve the Greek athletic games.
The current level of the square is raised about 6 meters above the original one. The games mentioned above were called “agones” and the name of the square derives from this very term for a linguistic corruption: from “agone” became “in agone”, “innagone”, “navone” and then “Navona”.
However, the current layout was decided in 1630, when Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, who later became pope in 1644 with the name of Innocent X, had a building built in late 16th century style on the area of some houses already owned by his family.
The main attraction in the square is The Fountain of the Rivers by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and famous monuments of Baroque Rome.
Duration: 15 minutes
