Rome Self-Guided Walking Audio Tour

The walk stop by stop: Castel Sant'Angelo, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Colosseum

10 stops · about 78 min walking · start: Castel Sant'Angelo · finish: Colosseum

The walk opens on the right bank at Castel Sant'Angelo, then crosses the Tiber on Ponte Sant'Angelo, between Bernini's angels. The baroque centre follows: Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the marble elephant of Piazza della Minerva and Sant'Andrea della Valle. From Piazza Venezia the route moves into imperial Rome, past Trajan's Forum and up to the Capitoline Hill, and the Colosseum brings it to an end. A different opening stop or another order can be set in the app, and no stop asks for an entry ticket.

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1. 

   1Castel Sant'AngeloStart

   The round fortress began as the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian, completed in 139 AD. Popes later turned it into a castle and prison: Pope Clement VII took refuge here during the Sack of Rome in 1527, and a raised corridor, the Passetto di Borgo, links it to the Vatican.

2. 

   2Ponte Sant'Angelo

   Emperor Hadrian completed this bridge in 134 AD as the approach to his mausoleum. Its marble angels holding the instruments of the Passion were designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1669; the two he carved himself are now in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte, and copies stand in their place.

3. 

   3Piazza Navona

   The long oval square keeps the shape of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 86 AD for athletic contests. In the middle stands Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers, completed in 1651, opposite the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, which Francesco Borromini completed; a popular story says Bernini's river gods recoil from his rival's church, but it is only a legend.

4. 

   4Pantheon

   The Pantheon was rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian between about 113 and 125 AD, although the inscription on its portico still names Marcus Agrippa, who built the first temple here. Its concrete dome, 43 metres across, is lit only by the open oculus at the top, and the painter Raphael is buried inside.

5. 

   5Piazza della Minerva

   In this small square stands Bernini's marble elephant carrying an ancient Egyptian obelisk, unveiled in 1667; the obelisk had been found nearby during excavations in 1665. Behind it rises Santa Maria sopra Minerva, one of the few Gothic churches in Rome.

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6. 

   6Sant'Andrea della Valle

   Building of this church began in 1591 and went on into the 17th century; Carlo Maderno's dome, inaugurated in 1622, is the second highest in Rome after St Peter's. The travertine façade was added by Carlo Rainaldi, and the first act of Puccini's opera Tosca is set inside the church.

7. 

   7Piazza Venezia

   The busy square is dominated by the Vittoriano, the white marble monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of united Italy, inaugurated in 1911 and completed in 1935. It holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, buried here in 1921, and on the west side stands Palazzo Venezia, from whose balcony Mussolini gave his speeches.

8. 

   8Trajan's Forum

   The last of the imperial forums was designed by Apollodorus of Damascus for Emperor Trajan. Its column, dedicated in 113 AD, is wrapped in a spiral relief about 180 metres long showing Trajan's wars against the Dacians, and since 1587 a statue of Saint Peter has stood on top.

9. 

   9Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio)

   Pope Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to redesign the square on the Capitoline Hill in the 1530s, and his oval pavement and palace façades still frame it. The Capitoline Museums here go back to a gift of ancient statues by Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in the middle is a copy of the bronze original kept inside.

10. 

    10ColosseumFinish

    The Flavian Amphitheatre was begun under Emperor Vespasian around 70–72 AD and inaugurated by his son Titus in 80 AD. It could hold an estimated 50,000 spectators for gladiator fights and animal hunts, and it is the largest amphitheatre ever built.