Free audio walk in Rome
The ancient heart
- 12 stops
- Free
Starts at Piazza del Campidoglio
About this walk
This loop of roughly three kilometres runs through ancient Rome as it survives between the modern city: the Forum seen from its edge, Trajan's Column, the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus and the cattle market by the Tiber. Everything is out in the open, so no ticket is needed for any stop except the Mamertine Prison, where you decide for yourself whether to go down.
The walk starts and ends on the Capitoline Hill. Allow an hour and a half to two hours, and longer if the Colosseum keeps you.
The stops
Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.
- 1Stop 1
Michelangelo's Square
Michelangelo turned this square away from the Forum, and we're heading in exactly that direction.
- 2Stop 2
The field of the cows
Right up until the nineteenth century, cows grazed here on top of the Forum, which lies eight metres below the city.
Read the story - 3Stop 3
The pit
Prisoners were lowered through a hole in the floor into this space, and they never came back out.
Read the story - 4Stop 4
The comic strip nobody could read
A relief two hundred metres long, wound around a column, whose top no one could ever read.
Read the story - 5Stop 5
The breakthrough of 1932
A parade avenue from 1932 that cost a hill, five hundred houses, and part of the imperial forums.
Read the story - 6Stop 6
The firewall
Thirty metres tall, built to hold back fire from the most densely packed district in the city.
Read the story - 7Stop 7
The amphitheatre on a lake
Built on Nero's lake, paid for with the spoils of Jerusalem, and half brought down by an earthquake.
Read the story - 8Stop 8
Emperors with someone else's body
The arch is covered in reliefs of earlier emperors, their heads hacked off and recarved.
Read the story - 9Stop 9
The school
The gladiator school with its own practice arena, stands for spectators and a tunnel leading to the Colosseum.
Read the story - 10Stop 10
How the Colossus got its name
Two outlines in the paving: a sweating fountain and the statue that gave the Colosseum its name.
Read the story - 11Stop 11
The field that held an entire city
A quarter of a million spectators, four stables each with their own colour, and charioteers who earned more than senators.
Read the story - 12Stop 12
The cattle market and the mouth
Rome's oldest harbour, the city's oldest marble building, and a drain cover with a world-famous reputation.
Read the story
Ready when you are
Walk The ancient heart with ROODS.
12 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.
