Colosseum and Forum

Fundamental Ancient Rome: the Colosseum and the Roman Forum (3 hours).

The Colosseum sums up the ancient Roman civilization in both its glorious and more troubling aspects. We will explore the construction, the architecture and engineering, what it stood for, discuss a day of games by comparing the “eyes” of the ancient Romans and their mindset to our own. We will create context and perspective to have a meaningful conversation with the ancient past and make the most of our actual presence in the real thing in the real place. This tour does not include the Underground.

The Forum was the center of the public life of ancient Rome. It all happened here: politics, justice, religion, community. Today it appears as a valley of splendid ruins that hardly explain themselves to us modern visitors. We will bring it back to life by creating a “toolbox” of ideas, concepts and stories that will allow us to recreate the architecture and art as it was, and feel the presence of ancient Roman leaders and ordinary people walking by our side. We will experience a 3000 year time-lapse by imagining the Forum changing over time and get to the heart of Rome’s eternity.

One of the following can be added to this tour:

–San Clemente– a 12th century church, built over a 4th century church, built over a 1st century Roman house. We walk down through all the levels and stand on what ground level used to be 2000 years ago and understand how Rome developed (1 hour). Due to Covid restrictions, this may not be an option at this time.

–Capitoline Hill and the Pantheon– piazza designed by Michelangelo and the best preserved building from ancient Roman times (1 hour).

–Palatine Hill– the ruins of the imperial palace (1 hour).