Rome Ancient Walking Tour with Audioguide on your Smartphone

What's Included

Meeting and pickup

Itinerary

• Colosseum (Pass by)

  Colosseum is Rome’s vast Flavian amphitheater, built in the 1st century AD under emperors Vespasian and Titus. It hosted gladiatorial combats, animal hunts and public spectacles before falling into decline in late antiquity. Later used as a fortress and a source of building stone, it is now one of the world’s most recognizable ancient monuments.

  Admission ticket free
• 1
  Arch of Constantine

  Arch of Constantine stands beside the Colosseum and was dedicated in 315 AD to celebrate Emperor Constantine’s victory over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Much of its decoration was reused from earlier monuments of Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, creating a striking mix of styles and imperial imagery.

  15 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 2

  Claudian Aqueduct (Aqua Claudia) was one of ancient Rome’s great water systems, begun under Caligula and completed by Emperor Claudius in 52 AD. It carried water from springs east of Rome for nearly 70 km, much of it underground before reaching the city on monumental arches. Sections of its masonry still survive around Rome today.

  15 minutes • Admission ticket free
• Circus Maximus (Pass by)

  Circus Maximus was ancient Rome’s largest venue for chariot racing and public spectacles. Located between the Palatine and Aventine hills, it could hold more than 150,000 spectators at its peak. The site was used for centuries for races, festivals and triumphal celebrations; today, its vast open space still reveals the scale of Roman mass entertainment.

  Admission ticket free
• 3
  Forum Boarium

  Bull Forum (Forum Boarium) was ancient Rome’s cattle market and one of the city’s oldest commercial areas. Located beside the Tiber, it became an important center for trade and religious cults. Two well-preserved Republican-era temples still stand here, traditionally identified as the Temple of Hercules Victor and the Temple of Portunus.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 4
  Mouth Of Truth

  Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità) is a huge ancient marble mask displayed in the portico of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Probably once a Roman drain cover, it became famous through a medieval legend claiming that it would bite the hand of a liar. The monument gained worldwide fame after appearing in the 1953 film Roman Holiday.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 5

  Cloaca Maxima is one of the oldest and most remarkable drainage systems of ancient Rome. Its origins date to the 6th century BC, when the marshy valley around the Roman Forum was drained. Later enclosed by stone vaults, the channel carried wastewater through the Forum Boarium into the Tiber. Parts of this ancient sewer still function today.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 6
  Isola Tiberina

  Tiber Island (Isola Tiberina) is a small ship-shaped island in the Tiber between the historic center and Trastevere. In 291 BC, a temple to Aesculapius, the Roman god of medicine, was founded here after an epidemic, beginning the island’s long association with healing. Today it is linked to both banks by the ancient Ponte Fabricio and Ponte Cestio.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 7
  Il Portico Di Ottavia

  Portico of Octavia was a monumental complex rebuilt by Emperor Augustus around 27 BC and dedicated to his sister Octavia. It once enclosed temples, libraries and public spaces beside the Theatre of Marcellus. In the Middle Ages, the ruins became part of Rome’s Jewish quarter, where a fish market operated for centuries beneath the ancient arches.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 8
  Teatro di Marcello

  Theatre of Marcellus was begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus around 13–11 BC, who dedicated it to his nephew Marcellus. It could hold roughly 15,000 spectators and became a model for later Roman theaters. In the Middle Ages, the structure was converted into a fortress and later incorporated into a Renaissance palace.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 9
  Capitoline Hill

  Capitolium, or the Capitoline Hill, was the political and religious heart of ancient Rome. Its summit held the great Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva and inaugurated in 509 BC. The hill later became the setting for Piazza del Campidoglio, redesigned by Michelangelo in the 16th century.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 10

  Temple of Juno Moneta stood on the northern summit of the Capitoline Hill and was dedicated in 344 BC. According to legend, Juno’s sacred geese had warned Romans of a Gallic attack decades earlier. Rome’s early mint was later established beside the temple, and the goddess’s title Moneta ultimately gave rise to words such as “money” and “monetary.”

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• (Pass by)

  Crypta Balbi is an archaeological complex and museum built around the remains of a vast portico attached to the Theatre of Balbus, erected in 13 BC. Excavations begun in 1981 revealed how this part of Rome changed continuously from antiquity through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, making the site a rare record of nearly two thousand years of urban life.

  Admission ticket free
• (Pass by)

  Largo di Torre Argentina is a square built around the remains of four Republican-era Roman temples dating from the 4th to 1st centuries BC. Nearby stood the Curia of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Today the archaeological area sits below modern street level, surrounded by busy central Rome.

  Admission ticket free
• 11

  Terme di Agrippa were Rome’s first great public baths, built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the late 1st century BC near the Pantheon. Fed by the Aqua Virgo aqueduct, the complex included bathing halls, gardens and spaces for exercise and relaxation. Much of it disappeared beneath later buildings, but fragments still survive in central Rome.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 12
  Piazza della Minerva

  Piazza della Minerva, just behind the Pantheon, is dominated by the Pulcino della Minerva: a 6th-century BC Egyptian obelisk set on an elephant-shaped base designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1667 and sculpted by Ercole Ferrata. The square also fronts the Gothic Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• Pantheon (Pass by)

  Pantheon is one of the best-preserved monuments of ancient Rome. Rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian around AD 125, it is famous for its vast concrete dome and central oculus, which remains open to the sky. Originally a Roman temple, it became a Christian church in 609 and later the burial place of artists and Italian kings, including Raphael and Victor Emmanuel II.

  Admission ticket free
• 13

  Baths of Nero (Thermae Neronianae) were built around AD 62 near the Pantheon, making them among Rome’s earliest imperial bath complexes. They were extensively rebuilt under Emperor Alexander Severus in AD 227 and became known as the Baths of Nero and Alexander. Only scattered remains survive today, incorporated into later buildings around the area.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 14
  Campo de' Fiori

  Campo de’ Fiori is one of Rome’s liveliest historic squares, known for its traditional daytime market and busy cafés and restaurants. Its name means “Field of Flowers,” recalling the open meadow that once occupied the site. At the center stands the monument to philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was executed here in 1600 by the Roman Inquisition.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 15
  Statua di Pasquino

  Pasquino is Rome’s most famous “talking statue,” a battered ancient sculpture placed near Piazza Navona in 1501. For centuries, Romans secretly attached satirical verses and political criticism to its base, especially when open dissent was dangerous. These anonymous texts became known as pasquinades, a word that entered several European languages.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 16
  Piazza Navona

  Piazza Navona occupies the site of the ancient Stadium of Domitian, built in the 1st century AD, which explains its long oval shape. In the 17th century it became a spectacular Baroque square, dominated by Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers and the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone. For centuries, summer festivals even included temporary flooding of the square.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 17

  The Flying Donkey (L’Asino che vola) is one of Rome’s earliest surviving modern murals. Painted in the 1970s on Via di Tor di Nona, it was part of a neighborhood protest against deteriorating housing and plans that threatened the area. Most of the original murals disappeared, but the winged donkey survived and became a symbol of utopian hopes and grassroots urban activism.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 18
  St. Angelo Bridge

  St. Angelo Bridge (Ponte Sant’Angelo) was built in AD 134 by Emperor Hadrian to connect central Rome with his mausoleum, today Castel Sant’Angelo. Its present appearance is especially famous for the ten angel statues added in the 17th century to designs by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and his pupils. The bridge offers one of Rome’s classic views toward the castle and the Tiber.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• Castel Sant'Angelo (Pass by)

  Castel Sant’Angelo was built in the 2nd century AD as the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian. Over the centuries it became a fortress, prison and papal residence, linked to the Vatican by the fortified Passetto di Borgo. Today it is a museum, crowned by the bronze Archangel Michael that gave the castle its present name.

  Admission ticket free
• 19
  Passetto di Borgo

  Passetto di Borgo is a fortified elevated corridor linking the Vatican with Castel Sant’Angelo. Built along the medieval wall and later strengthened for papal use, it served as an emergency escape route. Its most famous moment came during the Sack of Rome in 1527, when Pope Clement VII fled through the passage to the safety of the castle.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free
• 20
  The Tomb of Saint Peter

  Tomb of St. Peter lies beneath the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. Tradition holds that the apostle Peter was buried here after his martyrdom under Nero in the 1st century AD. Archaeological excavations in the 20th century uncovered a Roman necropolis and an early shrine marking the burial place, around which the first basilica was later built.

  10 minutes • Admission ticket free

Additional info

• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Suitable for all physical fitness levels
• The audio guide is available through a mobile app for iOS and Android
• Entry tickets to the Colosseum or any other attractions are not included. Please purchase them separately in advance
• The tour does not cover all the sights in Rome
• This is a self-guided tour — you will need to download the audio guide mobile app, activate your purchase, and follow the route on the app's map (without in-person guide on the meeting point)

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