ChronoWalk: 21 Rome Stops with Then and Now Reconstructions

P.za del Colosseo, 1, Roma

There is no meeting point. This is self-guided and starts on your own phone, at any hour, for as long as you like. Most people begin at the Colosseum, the first of the 21 recommended stops, but you can start anywhere and walk them in any order and at any pace.

Colosseum

*Exterior* The first stop. Outside the amphitheatre the narration opens with a games day: the crowd, the awnings overhead, the machinery under the arena floor. Press and hold the screen to see the facade as it stood in the 1st century.

Colosseum

*Interior* Optional, with your own ticket. Inside, the audio covers the hypogeum, who sat where and why, and the arena floor. Skip it and the route carries on to the next stop without a gap.

Costo extra

Palatine Hill

The hill where Rome put both its founding legend and its imperial palaces. From the terraces above the Forum: Romulus, the emperors who rebuilt the hill for themselves, and how Palatine became the word palace. Includes a sub-stop at the Circus Maximus viewpoint.

Costo extra

Arco di Tito

At the head of the Via Sacra, the triumph of AD 71 and the menorah carved on the inner wall, the spoils of Jerusalem carried through Rome and cut into stone where you are standing. (Ticket required, covered by the general Parco Archeologico entrance.)

Costo extra

Roman Forum

The Forum from a public viewpoint, no ticket needed. Seen from above, the scattered ruins turn back into a city and the temples, basilicas and the Via Sacra become identifiable. The Then and Now reconstruction fills in the rest, which makes this a workable alternative for anyone who would rather not pay to go in.

Three surviving vaults of what was once the largest roofed…

Three surviving vaults of what was once the largest roofed hall in Rome, in use into the reign of Constantine. The audio explains how it stood up and what it held; the reconstruction puts the missing roof back over your head.

Costo extra

Via Sacra

The main street of ancient Rome, walked inside the Forum with your own ticket. The narration follows the road the way a triumph did: prisoners, spoils and generals heading for the Capitoline, over paving still rutted by wheels.

Costo extra

Tempio di Vesta

The house of the priestesses who kept Rome's sacred fire alight. Who the Vestals were, what they were given and what was done to them when they failed, and how the ruins of the courtyard and its statues fit together.

Costo extra

I Rostri

The political centre of the Republic, where a speech could turn a city. This was the public stage for persuasion, celebration, accusation, and now and then for revenge carried out in front of everyone.

Costo extra

Arco di Settimio Severo

At the western end of the Forum: the Severan dynasty, the campaigns carved across the reliefs, and the name chiselled out of the inscription, with the reason it was removed.

Costo extra

Curia Julia

The Senate House, among the best preserved buildings in the Forum. What happened in this room, how the Senate actually functioned, and how the building survived by being turned into a church.

Costo extra

Piazza del Campidoglio

Michelangelo's square, laid across the most sacred hill of ancient Rome. The audio connects the Renaissance paving under your feet to the Temple of Jupiter that stood here, with the Forum in view behind.

Mercati di Traiano - Museo dei Fori Imperiali

The brick tiers usually called the world's first shopping centre. Trajan's Forum, the engineering that held the hillside back, and the column beside it that tells a war in a spiral. (Free to see from outside.)

Trevi Fountain

Rome's most famous fountain and the ancient aqueduct still filling it. The audio follows the water from the Aqua Virgo to the Baroque front in front of you, and explains the crowd, the coins and the ritual.

Spanish Steps

The staircase between the square and Trinità dei Monti. Grand Tour Rome, the foreign artists and poets who lived on these steps, and Bernini's sinking boat in the basin at the bottom.

Area Sacra di Largo Argentina

Four Republican temples sunk below street level, seen for free from the railing. What stood here, including the portico where Caesar was killed, and how the site came to be run by its cats.

Pantheon

*Exterior* The best preserved building of ancient Rome, from the square. Agrippa's inscription, Hadrian's rebuilding, and the very different square the portico once opened onto. Press and hold to see it as it was.

Pantheon

*Interior* Optional, with your own ticket. Inside, the audio turns to the dome and the oculus: how the concrete was graded, why the hole at the top was never closed, who is buried here and how the building has stayed up for two thousand years.

Costo extra

Piazza Navona

The shape of the square is the shape of the stadium under it. The audio traces Domitian's arena beneath your feet and Bernini's fountain above, with a reconstruction of the racing track that became a piazza.

Campo De' Fiori

A market square in the morning, a meeting place at night, and a place of executions before either. The audio covers what happened here and the statue of Giordano Bruno, standing on the spot where he was burned in 1600.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Hadrian's mausoleum turned papal fortress, seen from the Ponte Sant'Angelo. Imperial tomb, refuge, prison, in that order, with Bernini's angels lining the bridge in front of you. Going inside needs a separate ticket.

Via Appia Antica

*Extra* An optional last stop outside the centre, on the road that carried the legions south. The engineering of the paving, the tombs along the verges, and what leaving the city by this gate meant. (Easiest by car or taxi.)