Rome Expats - Guided Tours in English

05/01/2024

Tour privato di Ostia Antica.
Solo per intenditori

13/09/2023

07/08/2021

With its 44 hectars (109 acres), The Vatican is the smallest country in the world, ruled by a king and a college of cardinals officially established as a state in 1929 following the signing of the …

08/06/2021

Temperatures are slowly getting higher, summer's coming and...it's the perfect time for a PRIVATE GUIDED TOUR of LIDO DI OSTIA, the sea of Rome, a place full of nature and baroquette architecture.
Built since the beginning or the 1900s, after reclaiming a huge marshy land, it offers elegant and sophisticated buildings, pine woods and a charming fishermen's village.
In a 3 hour and 8 km walk I will show you and your friends all this. Available every day, am or pm, for a group of at least 7 people and adaptable to a meal on own in a local restaurant..

03/05/2021

Rome says goodbye to the last cat left at the Colosseum: Nerina.
I remember her slipping into the ruins, sleeping on ancient columns and approaching phlegmatically like a Hollywood on the Tiber star.
Sib Tibi Terra Levis 🖤

09/04/2021

Discover the benefits of a private tour with an exclusive licensed guide for your small group of friends, family or colleagues.
Choose the day, time and place or choose from our proposals.
Contact us for more information.
Tour in 🇮🇹🇬🇧🇪🇦

28/02/2021

Today the Mausoleum of Augustus (and of Livia, Agrippa, Marcellus and others of his lineage) reopens to the public after many years. We show you a preview of some photos taken yesterday, thanks to a special entrance.
The whole area around is about to be reorganized as shown in the model of the first picture.

The Mausoleum of Augustus was built in 28 BC, immediately after the victory of Actium over Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra as an imposing dynastic funerary monument for Augustus and his family. It is the largest circular tomb of the ancient world, with a total diameter of almost 90 meters, with an assumed height of at least 45 meters (approximately one third of the original roman monument remains). The gigantic bulk, which almost equaled the summit of the nearby Pincio hill, was strategically located near the bank of the Tiber, to be visible from most of the city.

23/02/2021

Today I've had the privilege of visiting the sixteenth-century Villa Lante al Gianicolo, designed by Giulio Romano, who also made most of the stuccoes and decorations. Today it houses the Finnish Embassy and the Finnish Institute of Classical Studies from whose loggia, in the past a literary salon that hosted artists such as Wagner, Carducci, D'Annunzio and Tolstoj, you can enjoy a wonderful view. On Sunday we will pass by (unfortunately without the possibility to enter) during the tour of almost 3 hours to discover the Janiculum and the morning will still be full of discoveries in a hill full of history, nature and beauty. Who knows that going down from Piazza Garibaldi towards Sant'Onofrio, in front of the Lighthouse we will not even end up hearing the screams of those who go to greet friends and family detainees in the Regina Coeli prison below: "Spartacus greets from Romoletto!"

19/02/2021

16/02/2021

Brief History of the Historic Roman Carnival

The Roman Carnival has been one of the most colorful events in the history of the city. Possibly deriving from the pagan festivities of the Saturnalia that in roman times celebrated an ideal archaic period when the god Saturn ruled a world of equality and no trace of slavery was on Earth. The masquerades level social differences by wearing masks and costumes and everybody gains a certain freedom during those days showing an hidden part of ourself, usually put away in the ordinary days.

Since the first competitions between the roman rioni (districts) including bullfights in the areas of Testaccio and Agone (Piazza Navona), in 1466 Pope Paul II moved all the important celebrations to the central street, formerly named Via Lata, and then renamed Via del Corso due to the corsa (race) of the berber horses without jockeys. And this just in front of his brand-new palace in the old Piazza San Marco now known as Piazza Venezia.

The Roman carnival lasted nine days and started with an official parade of the Senator (the governor of the city) along the Corso and the ring of bells from the Town Hall on the Capitol Hill. Only after this ceremony, everybody was allowed to show off on the road with all different types of masks according to personal possibility and creativity including trades and typical italian characters such as Pulcinella, Harlequin and Rugantino; only military and ecclesiastical costumes were forbidden with the pillory always well visible as a deterrent to crimes. The balconies were adorned with colorful banners and flowers as people threw little chalk confetti at others making everybody look, at the end of the day, as whitewashed as a baker.

Every day there was a competition, mainly a race, for the youth, the seniors, the Jews, donkeys and horses on the last day, martedì grasso, with cash prizes and a palio (silk banner) given to the winning animals and owners. All this before the last incredible event which was also a symbolic funeral of the carnival: la festa dei moccoletti (the candle party) when everybody holded a lit candle and tried to blow out anybody's candles screaming "sia ammazzato chi non porta il moccoletto!" (whoever not holding a candle shall be slayed). This was the last event before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent (Carne Levare that is 'meat removal'). This is why Tuesday was a 'fat day', the last time to eat abundantly before the forty days of penance.

Accidents were frequent during the horse races and when Queen Margherita assisted to the death of a boy who was run over as He crossed the road, in 1883 the long-lasting event described by several writers (Goethe, Henry James, Charles Dickens, Belli) and pictured in so many works had to be abolished since it was considered not suitable for the modern times.

11/02/2021

Horror scenes from ancient Rome ..
I have always been fascinated by the details on the Roman reliefs that we still find in many places in the city that are often propagandistic and all so realistic without any committee that can intervene to protect who knows who. Often we look at them distracted without noticing the sometimes gruesome details. As a true military and superstitious people, we see many scenes of war represented with armor, encampments and river crossings (see below the Danube) with bridges of boats and beheadings of noble barbarians with heads rolling on the ground (see below). And then, following the detailed comic story of the battle (in this case over Germani and Sarmatians), a macabre winged being appears to you that would be Jupiter Pluvius who would help the Romans to win against these barbarians who perhaps flee more for fear slipping in the divine mud (see if you want below).
All this and much more is represented along the 29 meters of the Column of Marcus Aurelius, in front of the new residence of Premier Draghi, who since 192 AD has delighted and scared us, inspiring films to directors and nightmares to adults and children.
If you dare, on Sunday we will go and look at it closely (certainly not lowered from above on a rope as Baldassarre Peruzzi did) during the guided tour of Via del Corso and the Roman Carnival

10/02/2021

Along the Janiculum promenade and among the 86 half-busts sculpted between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries we find John "whitehead" Peard, known for having been Garibaldi's double, of whom he became his right-hand man and inseparable friend.
In the Expedition of the Thousand, under the command of an army of English professionals, he greatly contributed to the unification of Italy.
An anecdote should be remembered: such was the similarity that King Vittorio Emanuele II mistook him for Garibaldi in the meeting that took place in Naples!

10/02/2021

Via del Corso is a treasure chest and an important part of the historical memory of the city. The name derives from the famous horse race, part of the Carnival celebrations that Pope Paul II moved here from the fields of Testaccio in 1466, changing the name of the ancient Via Lata, which was then adopted then by many Italian cities. Often you cross it quickly without stopping too much to look at its monuments and historic buildings, ignoring stories related to the Pietà Rondanini, the Ara Pacis, the talking statues, the first expresso and, despite its elegant and artistocratic character, the use of the Roman expression "te possino ammazzá .." (they should kill you) linked to the moccoletti (candles) festival of the historic Roman Carnival in which people transformed it into the living room of Rome