About this walk
This loop of about three and a half kilometres links the places that appear on every list: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori. At every stop, alongside the familiar story, you get something you would otherwise walk straight past, from a painted dome that only works from one spot in the floor to a marble foot left over from a vanished Egyptian sanctuary.
The walk starts and ends at the Spanish Steps, close to Spagna metro station. Four stops are indoors, three of them churches with free entry that close for a few hours around midday.
The stops
Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.
- 1Stop 1
Welcome to the Spanish Steps
The staircase was built with French money, the square is named after Spain, and the fountain sits half-sunk because the water pressure was never strong enough.
- 2Stop 2
The angels that stayed behind
Not one of the ten angels on the Angel Bridge is by Bernini himself. The two he carved with his own hands stand right here.
Read the story - 3Stop 3
The fountain at the end of a Roman pipe
The water is two thousand years old, the fountain eighteen centuries younger, and off to the right stands a vase that holds nothing up at all.
Read the story - 4Stop 4
The dome that isn't
The dome above the nave is made of paint, and it only lines up from exactly one spot on the floor.
Read the story - 5Stop 5
The Hole in the Roof
The largest unreinforced dome in the world, with a nine-metre opening that rain has been falling through for eighteen centuries.
Read the story - 6Stop 6
The square that's really a stadium
The shape of the square traces the floor plan of a stadium, and the city's loveliest false story is about the figure with the covered head.
Read the story - 7Stop 7
The field of flowers
The one large square in the old centre without a church, with the half circle of a vanished theatre tucked around the corner.
Read the story - 8Stop 8
The Colony of Torre Argentina
Four temples from the republic, uncovered by a demolition that went wrong, and a cat colony that gets to stay by law.
Read the story - 9Stop 9
The typewriter
Romans call it the typewriter. It cost a medieval neighbourhood, and on the left is the balcony where Mussolini spoke.
Read the story - 10Stop 10
The marble foot
A marble foot a metre and a half long, the last trace of an Egyptian sanctuary that once stood beneath this block.
Read the story - 11Stop 11
Eleven Columns in a Wall
Eleven columns from an imperial temple, built into a customs house that now holds the Chamber of Commerce.
Read the story - 12Stop 12
The racecourse and the column
A column thirty metres high raised for a philosopher-emperor, and a dead-straight street that spent centuries as a racecourse.
Read the story - 13Stop 13
The gridiron
Behind a quiet facade lies the iron gridiron on which, according to tradition, Laurence was roasted alive.
Read the story - 14Stop 14
The Street of the Pipes
This fashion street is named after the water main beneath it, and at number 86 you'll find the oldest café in the city.
Read the story
Ready when you are
Walk The icons of Rome with ROODS.
14 stops through Rome. Open ROODS in your browser, walk to the first pin and the story plays.
- Stories on a map, with narrated audio
- Walk at your own pace, stop where you like
- Runs in your browser. An app is optional.
