Piazzas of Rome Tour with Colosseum & Roman Forum

In the Roman forum we will travel back in time to the 15th of March 44 BC, known to history as the Ides of March. It is a crucial day in Roman history, the day on which Julius Caesar, idolized by the people almost as a god on earth, is assassinated. The knife-wielders are a group of Roman senators, convinced that Caesar has betrayed the ideals of the Roman Republic in the name of personal ambition. His violent death marked a turning point, the originary myth on which an empire was built. Retracing the last day of Julius Caesar through the streets of Rome, we will immerse you in the culture and daily life of the ancient world’s greatest metropolis. Together we will recreate the oratory of Cicero and uncover the lives of the emperors, which seem to live on still in these evocative spaces.

The spectacles of death in the Colosseum that so often transfixed the Roman populace are difficult to understand for the modern visitor, simultaneously fascinating and horrifying. One of the cruelest and most enigmatic aspects of Roman culture, we will endeavor to understand the place that this brutal entertainment had in ancient society. Learn about the lives of the gladiators, men who were compelled to live out a precarious existence on the sands of the arena, from their energy-sapping training to bloody deaths before the baying of a crowd delirious with blood-lust. Finally, we will examine the awe-inspiring architecture of this iconic structure, and revive the ingenious engineering that made these violent spectacles possible.

Fast-forwarding over 1,000 years, we find ourselves thrust into the height of a golden age of art and architecture, where timeless monuments await around every corner. The remarkable power of water is writ large at the Trevi fountain, a stunningly exuberant celebration of its life-giving properties through the power of Baroque architecture, and symbol of the city the world over. Water also plays a vital role in the theatrics of Piazza Navona, where Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain dominates a space that still bears the traces of its ancient origins as a racetrack. We will also wander through the warren of narrow streets that lead off the piazza, frozen snapshots of a different age that have hardly changed over the centuries.