Private walking tours & museums tours in Rome with an official licensed English speaking guide.
Vatican Museum Tour: Vatican Galleries, Art Collections, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter Basilica. Private walking tour.
Tour Includes:
Car pick-up at the hotel, transfer to Vatican Museum, *our guests will be guided through the Papal art Galleries collection. The Cortile della Pigna, with the pine cone symbol replaced under its famous Nicchione, a monumental three story niche created by Pirro Logorio.
Completed the first section of your visit your Lecture-Guide will help you to form your own opinion on the Candelabras Gallery and Dutch Tapestries, designed by masters of Renaissance in the 16th and 17th century.
Your guide clearly illustrates why the Vatican art collections were and still are the most important in the world. Once shown the Geographical Maps and Raphael rooms, our turn will arrive for the glorious moment: The recently restored Sistine Chapel, home to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement frescos.
From here we will be a short walk to St. Peter’s Basilica, to marvel at Michelagelo’s Pietà, Bernini’s wonderful Baldacchino, and the carismatic Tombs of the Popes. If we have time left we’ll see the “Moseic School of Art.” Sightseeing on the way back to the hotel.
Includes transfers R/T from your hotel in Rome & a licensed guide for 4 hours. Option of just a guide, without transfers for 2 or 3 hour tour.
The Colosseum& the Forum Tour: Gladiators and Emperors. Private walking sightseeing tour of archaeological Rome. 3 hours tour through archaeological sites.
Tour Includes:
Capitoline hill for a breath taking panoramic view of the Forum.In the Roman Forum walk by the Temple of Saturn, visit the Curia, Senate of ancient Rome,. see imposing basilicas, and Caesar’s cremation site.
Continue along the Via Sacra, where legions once marched, to the temple of Vesta, the vestal vergins home, the Basilica of Massentius and Costantine, and Titus Portal.
See the Arch of Costantine, visit ancient Rome most outstanding landmark, the Colosseum, site of spectacular gladiators combats and gruesome executions.
Jewish and medieval Rome Tour: Synagogue, Old Ghetto, Campo de’ Fiori, Farnese Palace, Piazza Navona. Private walking sightseeing tour of Rome Jewish "ghetto" and medieval district. 3 hours tour of the Jewish district and of medieval and renaissance Rome most popular areas.
Tour Highlights:
6th century bc Teatro Marcello and the ruins of Octavia’s Portico, ancient Rome popular market area and center of Rome Jewish community life. The oldest established in Europe, a Jewish community is first recorded in Rome in 139 BC. Retrace its development since the time when Jewish traders from Israel first settled in the district of Trastevere to 1555 when they were moved to the area that became Rome jewish ghetto for 300 years.
Narrow streets, interesting ancient roman remains, few dwellings that still tell of the miserable living conditions in the old ghetto, the beautiful 1905 Synagogue and its museums of the Rome Jewish Community.
From the old ghetto to nearby areas of medieval and renaissance Rome: the open air market of "Campo de’ Fiori" with pictoresque stalls, Palazzo Spada with Borromini’s amazing perspective, Piazza Farnese with its fountains and its magnificent Michelangelo’s palace, colourful backstreets, lined by antique stores, to breathtaking Piazza Navona with Bernini’s fountains, sidewalk artists and outdoor cafes.
Spectacular Baroque Rome Tour: A 3 hour walking tour of baroque Rome covering the eternal city’s historical center. Bernini’s St. Teresa’s Ecstasy in Santa Maria della Vittoria, St. Susanna, Rome American community church, San Carlino’s with its splendid cloister, Bernini’s St Andrea with its magnificent cupola, Quirinale palace Italy’s Presidential residence.
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| Spanish Steps |
Trevi Fountain |
Bernini’s Exctasy |
Tour Highlights:
Barberini palace, home to the National Gallery of Art, Bernini’s Api and Triton fountains. Bernini’s "Angels" in St Andrea delle Fratte, famed Spanish Steps, Rome exclusive designers and jewellers shopwindows, along the Via Condotti. Throw a coin in Trevi fountain at the end of your tour.
Caravaggio’s Rome Tour: and the Age of Baroque private walking tour of Caravaggio’s Rome: 3 hours walking tour through Rome 17th century center home to Caravaggio and his artists friends.
Tour Highlights:
St Ignazio and Andrea Pozzo’s spectacular ceiling, Doria Pamphili princely family palace and its private gallery with Caravaggio’s "Flight to Egypt" and "Repentant Magdalene" and Velasquez, Raphael, Titian, Bernini’s masterpieces. Piazza della Minerva with Bernini’s charming elephant, Santa Maria sopra Minerva with Lippi’s St Catherine’s Chapel and Michelangelo’s Christ.
Pantheon, St Louis of France with Caravaggio’s St Matteo’s stories, St Agostino with Raphael’s "I Profeti" and Caravaggio’s dramatic "Pilgrims Madonna". Mausoleum of Augustus, Fine Arts Accademy, Piazza del Popolo once busy gate to the cityn and supposed site of Nero’s grave, Santa Maria del Popolo with its treasures: Raphael’s Chigi Chapel, Caravaggio’s St Peter’s Crucifixion and St Paul’s Vision, Bernini’s Angels and main altar. Via del Babuino, with its antiques stores end elegant shops, lead to the Spanish Steps and the conclusion of your tour.
Magic of Ancient Rome Tour: private in-depth walking sightseeing tour of archaeological Rome covering all of ancient Rome important archaeological monuments as well as the social political religious economical aspects of life in ancient Rome.
Tour Highlights:
4 hour in depth tour through Rome important archaeological sites. Pantheon, oldest building of ancient time, Caesar’s assasination’s site, the old Jewish ghetto, Campidoglio, most sacred of Rome seven hills for a breath taking panoramic view of the Forum.
In the Roman Forum walk by the Temple of Saturn and visit the Curia, Senate of ancient Rome. See imposing basilicas, stop by Caesar’s cremation site. The Via Sacra, where legions once marched, the temple of Vesta and the vestal vergins home. The Basilica of Massentius and Costantine, Hadrian’s temple of Venus and Rome, Titus Portal. Climb Palatine hill with its imperial memories. Domus Flavia, Domus Augustana, a huge stadium, Circus Maximus, Palatine Museums with fine exibits of roman and greek art and a plastic model reconstruction of 11th century bc dwellings.
Arch of Costantine opposite ancient Rome most outstanding landmark, the Colosseum, site of spectacular gladiators combats and gruesome executions. Extensive visit of both ground and upper structures. A short stroll along the Avenue of Imperial Fora with remains of Augustus, Caesar and Trajan fora ends a memorable journey through history.
Raphael’s Rome Tour: private walking sightseeing tour Renaissance Rome – Raphael’s Rome.
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| Pantheon |
Trastevere |
Villa Farnesina |
Tour Highlights:
3 hour tour through some of the city’s most colourful sections. Colourful backstreets, craftsman workshops, antiques and curiosities shops, typical "trattorias". Pantheon, ancient Rome most famous temple, and Raphael’s tomb, St. Augustin, church of bankers and courtesans of renaissance Rome, with Caravaggio’s "Madonna dei Pellegrini" and Raphael’s "I Profeti".
The house of Fiammetta famous courtesan of Borgia’s time, Via dei Coronari, once pilgrims path to St. Peter and today’s Rome antiques center, Pietro da Cortona’s Santa Maria della Pace with Raphael’s "Sibille". Michelangelo’s Farnese palace , busy Campo de’ Fiori open air market, Via Giulia with its renaissance palaces and, across the Tiber, Trastevere.
Villa Farnesina, splendid residence of renaissance banker and art patron Agostino Chigi, with magnificent frescoes by Peruzzi and Raphael’s mundane"Triumph of Galatea" and "Amore and Psyche". Colourful Trastevere streets to Raphael’s and his "Fornarina"’ love’s nest and close by to Santa Maria and its splendid medieval mosaics.
Bernini and Borromini Tour: – the Age of Baroque. 3 hour walking tour through Rome historical center, and its fascinating baroque masterpieces.
Tour Highlights:
St Ignazio and Andrea Pozzo’s spectacular ceiling, Borromini’s St Ivo alla Sapienza, Piazza Navona with its fountains, sidewalk artists, outdoor caffès. St Louis of France for Caravaggio’s St Mattew’s stories, St Agostino with Raphael’s "I Profeti" and Caravaggio’s "Pilgrims Madonna". "Cembalo", princely palace of the Borghese family with its elegant courtyard overlooking antiquarian books stalls in the piazzetta.
Mausoleum of Augustus, Piazza del Popolo, once busy gate into the city and supposed site of Nero’s grave, Santa Maria del Popolo with: Raphael’s Chigi Chapel, Caravaggio’s St Peter’s Crucifixion and St Paul’s Vision and Bernini’s Angels and main altar. Via del Babuino, with its antiques stores and elegant shops leads to popular Spanish Steps at the end of the your tour.
The Borghese Gallery Tour: the Barberini and Borghese Families (4h tour)
Tour Highlights:
Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urbanus VIII) lived next door to Scipione Borghese, Pope Paul V's Cardinal nephew. ("Next door" in this case means the two possessed sprawling estates surrounded by gardens whose boundaries happened to meet.) Maffeo, who was on good terms with the avid art collector Scipione, instroduced him to a young sculptor, GianLorenzo Bernini. Scipione thought that Bernini had talent and flattered the young artist by buying one of his first works, a statue of the she-goat Amalthea. Although a bit rough, this statue foretells Bernini's mature techniques and his sensual ability to tantalize the viewer's five senses.
From approximately 1615 to 1624, Bernini continued to hone his art. He produced four, full-sized sculptures for the discerning Scipione Borghese. These sculptures, still in the Borghese collection, culminate in Bernini's version of David, seen here. Not only the hero and liberator of the Jewish state, David was often considered the patron saint of poets and artists because he composed the Old Testament Psalms. It should not surprise us then that this masterpiece of grimacing tension is actually Bernini's self-portrait. His friend, Maffeo Barberini is said to have held a mirror for the artist in his studio as he worked. (In 1624, Bernini suspended his activity as a sculptor, having been named Head Architect at the Church of Saint Peter's by Barberini, who had become Pope Urbanus VIII.)
In the Galleria Borghese, at the heart of the Borghese Gardens, we will enjoy the magnificent art of Scipione's collection. After examining four stunning sculptures, several busts, and a variety of small models by Bernini, we will admire Scipione's superb collection of Caravaggios. These oil paintings, on display in one room, neatly trace Caravaggio's growth as an artist. Absorbing his work in chronological order, we begin with his early pieces: a still life and The Sick Bacchus. After examining his controversial rendition of the Virgin Mary, his renowned Saint Jerome, and his portrayal of Saint John the Baptist, our visit culminates with Caravaggio's spectacularly grim self-portrait, David and Goliath.
If time and energy allow, we'll visit the famous Capuchin Church, which is near the Borghese Gallery. While Maffeo Barberini's brother was head of the church, work began on the elaborate construction of its eerie crypt, which was decorated entirely by the bones of long-deceased Capuchin friars. Human bones of all types cover room after room of the crypt, creating chandeliers, designs and dioramas that would be fanciful if they were not so chilling. A memento mori that serves as a baroque interpretation of death, the crypt is now notorious throughout the world and open to the curious and brave.
"The Jesuit style" Baroque Rome Private Tour: Decades ago, "the Jesuit style" was a synonym for "baroque." While art historians now agree that the two terms are not interchangeable, many Jesuit sights in Rome are still exquisite examples of Baroque at its best.
Tour Highlights:
We start our visit with a brief encapsulation of the life of St. Ignatius, seen in the oil painting here. One of 13 children, he was born Inigo Lopez de Loyola in 1491. From petty Basque nobility, Inigo grew up much like many a nobleman: as a card shark, a military hero, and a ladies man. After a cannonball shattered his shin, he traded in his youthful escapades for a new life. Longing to outdo the saints and martyrs of days gone by, he changed his name and dedicated his energies entirely to Jesus, organizing a corps of young men that would dedicate themselves to defending both Catholicism and the Pope. Founding the Compagnia di Gesù (later becoming the Jesuit Order), he became its first General Superior.
Next we visit St. Ignatius' rooms at the Casa Professa--still the headquarters of the Compagnia di Gesù. Although deformed by his youthful encounter with the cannonball and maimed by primitive bone-setting techniques, St. Ignatius traveled the entire globe mentally: his apartment in the Casa Professa was the center of a worldwide evangelization operation in which he maintained correspondence with hundreds of Jesuit missionaries in locations all over the world. Ignatius' apartment became a shrine shortly after his death in 1556. Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit brother, painted frescoes of lively events and humorous scenes from Saint Ignatius' life the apartment's vestibule. An artist, mathematician and professor at the nearby Jesuit college, Pozzo experimented with receding lines, creating a marvelous optical illusion of depth and majesty in order to inspire visitors at St. Ignatius' shrine.
The Gesú church, which Ignatius wanted but never saw built, is right next door to the Casa Professa. It offers us its colorful history and stunning Baroque decorations. Ignatius' own magnificent altar can be seen in the picture above.
Walking down the Via di Sant'Ignazio, we explore the effects that Jesuit enterprises had on Rome's social and architectural fabric. Passing by the Collegio Romano, which is now a state-run, Italian high school, we touch on the Jesuit tradition of teaching and education. Our visit then takes us to the church Sant'Ignazio. Dedicated to Ignatius shortly after his sanctification, the church is a mammoth celebration of the Jesuit order's founder and his closest associates. Since the church was being designed and embellished in the late 1600s, it cannot fail to awaken our Baroque sensibilities. Andrea Pozzo again captures our attention with his ambitious frescoes on the nave's ceiling: these allow us a glimpse into heaven. Pozzo also deserves kudos for his surprising solution to a pesky problem that the Jesuits had been having with Sant'Ignazio's dome... You have to see it to believe it!
DOMUS AUREA & SAN CLEMENTE TOUR: A 3-hour walking tour to the exploration of the Emperor Nero’s Golden House and San Clemente church
Tour highlights:
Pre-booked admission at 10:20a.m. Your guide will meet you at your hotel at 9:50am Emperor Nero's structure was a huge complex of villas erected on the Esquiline Hill by the architects Severus and Celer, Completed in A.D.68, it seemed more like a town than a home, and went by the name of Domus Aurea (Golden House). Little remains today of this mighty complex, since Nero successors returned the site to the Roman people, and it was soon built over.
Your Lecture-guide will then take you to San Clemente just 10 minutes walk from here, which is one of the eighteen important churches in Rome that are known to have existed as early as the 3rd century A.D. It was dedicated to St. Clement (pontificate 88 - 97), the third Roman Bishop after St. Peter. It was destroyed during the Norman invasion in 1084. The remains can now be seen in the lower church, which was uncovered in the mid-19th century. A few years after the church was destroyed, a new building was started under Pope Paschal II (pontificate 1099 - 1118) raised on a higher level, known as the Upper Church.
On the way back, you'll have time left for a lecture on external ring of the the Flavian Amphitheatre.
Culina Romana Tour: Roman cuisine then and now
Tour Highlights:
Ancient Roman cuisine will appeal to both your eyes and palate! We meet in one of Rome's most beautiful and well-known outdoor markets, Campo de' Fiori, an hour before lunch. Among flowers, spice vendors, and locals choosing their fruits and vegetables, we discuss the history of the ancient Roman diet.
We'll go back to the old, culinarily-impaired days, when shepherds--limited to nuts, berries and acorn stew--complained about their fare. As the Romans conquered the Mediterranean, they began to incorporate into their diet a wider variety of fruits, vegetables and grains from other areas. We'll compare this ancient cuisine to its modern counterpart, and talk about the ancient sources that provide us with this information.
We continue our discussion at a nearby restaurant, where we taste some of the wines the Romans loved, nibble the breads, meats, and cheeses that were their staple food, sip soups based on ancient ingredients, and discuss the aspects of ancient cuisine that manifest themselves in Italian foods.
Lunch costs approximately € 20 a person. Note: The menu can be all vegetarian. Please ask for more information if you have any other dietary restrictions.
