Rome Walking Tours

20/09/2026

Rome has opened what may be the largest ancient Roman wall mosaic ever discovered.

Found beneath the Baths of Trajan, the mosaic dates to the 1st century AD and stretches for more than 15 meters along the walls. Its surviving scenes include architectural façades, human figures and a remarkably detailed coastal or port city.

The first traces were discovered in 1998, but later excavations revealed the work’s extraordinary scale. Newly exposed sections and restoration work have now allowed the underground site to open to the public for the first time in 2026.

17/09/2026

THE AURELIAN WALLS: ROME'S LAST GREAT DEFENSIVE RING**
The image appears to show an elevated section of the ancient Aurelian Walls in Rome, Italy, one of the most impressive surviving fortifications of the Roman Empire.
**BUILT TO PROTECT ROME**
Construction began around AD 271 under Emperor Aurelian and continued under his successor Probus. The walls were built as Rome faced increasing military threats and invasions during the turbulent third century.
Unlike the earlier Republican and Imperial-era city walls, the Aurelian Walls were constructed specifically to strengthen Rome's defenses against external armies.
**ROMAN BRICK AND CONCRETE**
The fortification was built primarily from Roman concrete faced with carefully laid red brick.
The combination produced a massive yet relatively efficient defensive structure.
The walls incorporated numerous towers and fortified gates, allowing soldiers to observe approaching enemies and defend vulnerable sections of the perimeter.
**THE WALKWAY ABOVE THE CITY**
The elevated walkway along the top allowed Roman soldiers to patrol the fortifications and rapidly move between defensive positions.
From this height, guards could observe the surrounding landscape and communicate with nearby towers.
The defensive system therefore functioned as a continuous military platform surrounding the city.
**TOWERS AND GATES**
Square and later modified towers projected from the walls at regular intervals.
These provided elevated positions for defenders and helped protect the spaces between towers.
Major gateways such as Porta San Sebastiano were heavily fortified and controlled movement into and out of Rome.
**A CITY BEHIND THE WALLS**
The Aurelian Walls enclosed a huge area of Rome, including important roads, hills, neighborhoods, and monumental buildings.
Their construction demonstrates how dramatically Rome's strategic priorities had changed.
The city that had once projected power across the Mediterranean now needed enormous fortifications to protect its own population.
**SURVIVING AFTER 1,700 YEARS**
Large sections of the Aurelian Walls remain standing today.
Visitors can explore portions of the fortifications, including areas associated with Porta San Sebastiano and the Museum of the Walls.
Walking along the surviving ramparts provides a remarkable connection with the soldiers who once patrolled them.
**THE EMPIRE THAT BUILT THE WALLS WOULD EVENTUALLY FALL—BUT THE WALLS STILL STAND AROUND ROME.**

17/09/2026

16/09/2026

This restaurant opened the same decade Michelangelo was still painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It never closed.

Diners walking into La Campana today expect a solid, old-fashioned Roman trattoria, coda alla vaccinara and cacio e pepe served in a room that feels appropriately historic for the neighborhood near the Pantheon. It reads as simply another well-regarded traditional restaurant, the kind of place assumed to have opened at some vague point in the past and quietly stuck around. That framing skips exactly how far back this business actually goes, and what its founder was really trying to accomplish.

Pietro della Campana opened the establishment in 1518 as a locanda, a combined inn, tavern, and postal station serving travelers and pilgrims passing through Rome, according to a property census from 1526 documenting six scudi paid to open the business. He had seven mouths to feed in his own household. The restaurant took his family name and has operated continuously at the exact same address on Vicolo della Campana ever since, a claim the Trancassini family, who have run it for roughly the last century, submitted to Guinness World Records in 2019 with archival tax documents as proof.

But

The guest list accumulated across five centuries reads like a survey of who mattered in Rome during whatever decade they visited. Caravaggio reportedly dined there regularly while painting nearby at Sant'Agostino and San Luigi dei Francesi in the early 1600s. Goethe wrote about a visit in 1787 and described meeting the owner's daughter Faustina in his Italian Journey. Federico Fellini, Anna Magnani, Pablo Picasso, and Maria Callas all became regulars in the 20th century, and French President Emmanuel Macron and former Italian President Giorgio Napolitano have both eaten there in recent decades.

You can still order the same Roman classics today at Vicolo della Campana 18, open Tuesday through Sunday, a short walk from the Pantheon, where the restaurant is currently pursuing formal recognition as the oldest restaurant in the world.

Some restaurants get remembered for their food. This one just kept feeding people, generation after generation, until five centuries had quietly passed.

18/08/2026

Not driving? Not a problem. Take a train to enjoy some cool day trips outside of Rome.

Lake villages, Etruscan cliffs and volcanic hill towns sit at the end of a short regional train ride out of Termini and Tiburtina, close enough for a morning departure and porchetta at lunch.

15/08/2026

People are always asking me about day-trips from Rome. Here are some suggestions.

Lake villages, Etruscan cliffs and volcanic hill towns sit at the end of a short regional train ride out of Termini and Tiburtina, close enough for a morning departure and porchetta at lunch.

09/08/2026

ROME IS GETTING HOTTER — AND IF YOU REMEMBER THE 1990s, YOU’RE NOT IMAGINING IT.

As a tour guide, I get asked this question all the time. I finally had some time to break it down for you. Thirty years ago, around 1995, a typical hot summer afternoon in Rome was roughly 28–31°C (82–88°F). There were certainly heat waves and occasional days around 35°C (95°F), but 35°C was genuinely very hot. Fast-forward to 2023, and temperatures of 33–36°C (91–97°F) became commonplace during long stretches of the summer. During the extraordinary July heat wave, temperatures exceeded 40°C (104°F) across parts of Rome; on July 18, 39.3°C (102.7°F) was recorded at the historic Collegio Romano station in the center, while other stations around the city reported 41–42°C (106–108°F). The difference isn’t just the record high—it’s how frequently extreme heat now occurs and how long it hangs around. (Creatività Italia⁠)

That helps explain why the summer of 2023 felt almost endless to people living and working in Rome. The city didn’t literally remain above 90°F every day from May through October, but extended periods above 30°C/86°F and 32°C/90°F persisted well outside what we traditionally think of as the Roman summer. And central Rome amplifies the experience: stone, asphalt and buildings absorb enormous amounts of solar energy during the day and release it after sunset, so the city doesn’t cool down the way the countryside does. Thirty years ago, a 35°C afternoon was something you talked about. Today, during a Roman heat wave, 35°C can simply be Tuesday.

And what about the Romans themselves 2,000 years ago? They lived during the so-called Roman Climatic Optimum, a relatively warm Mediterranean period. We don’t have thermometers from AD 100, so nobody can honestly tell you the temperature of the Forum on a particular July afternoon. But climate reconstructions suggest that Roman-era land temperatures were broadly comparable to the warmer decades of the 20th century, rather than today’s extremes. In practical terms, think of a typical Roman summer afternoon as roughly 28–30°C (82–86°F), with hotter days certainly occurring—not a city routinely spending weeks around 35–40°C (95–104°F) as modern Rome increasingly does. Researchers have even reconstructed ancient Rome’s climate using Latin literary descriptions, environmental evidence and the extraordinary instrumental record at Collegio Romano. (ScienceDirect⁠)

So Julius Caesar would have recognized a hot Roman summer. But Rome in July 2023? Even a Roman might have wondered what the hell happened to the weather.

23/07/2026

Free cinema every day until August 4!

10/05/2026

🤔

Over the past three years, requests from Americans asking for advice on moving to Italy have shot up by 3,600%. 📈

It started as a slow rise in 2023/2024, but over the last few months? It's gone absolutely crazy.

So here's my honest advice:
Please don't think Italy is the answer to all your problems.
Try to make your country work again first.

I hear how half of your country despises the other half — and vice versa.
Please don't get sucked into that. Don't buy into the childish division and insults.

We fell into that trap once, with Mussolini. It brought us close to civil war.
We learned the hard way to stay united despite our differences.

Italy will always welcome you with open arms.
But don't run away from home. Fix it. Then come visit us for the right reasons. 🇮🇹❤️