Touring in Rome to discover its treasures

TOURING IN ROME TO DISCOVER ITS TREASURES

How much time should you spend visiting Rome? " Rome a lifetime is not enough", goes the popular saying. And it's true. You need several lifetimes to come to grips fully with our beautiful, chaotic, fascinating, frustrating and romantic city.

The Eternal City has always inspired wonder and awe in its visitors, no matter what tours they did.
Its ruined but still quite imposing, monuments represent a point of reference for a city that, through the imperial, medieval, renaissance, baroque periods and beyond, has undergone many transformations and which has produced the best archaeological archive of Western culture.

The heritage of Rome still resides in its antiquities, the Colosseum, the Forum, and the hundreds of other archaeological sites and museums that draw milions of tourists each year and remind Italians of who they are. Paradoxically, perhaps, Italy is betting heavily on the future of antiquity.

It is remarkable how old things can take on new life in Rome. The Colosseum, that magnificent stadium built in the first century AD to stage gladiator games, executions and other forms of popular entertainment, came back to life last summer by hosting its first public spectacle since the year 550 A.D.: a series of ancient Greek tragedies performed by, among others, the National Theater of Greece. In order to do that, it was necessary to build a wooden catwalk and stage over part of the old killing floor, which was long ago excavated to reveal the labyrinth of underground tunnels and chambers that once housed gladiators and wild animals.

Tourists sightseeing around the city with their eyes raised to admire its many monuments should know that about 4m under their feet exists another city, with traces of other settlements deeper still.
People visiting Rome usually spend their time in the historic centre, avoiding the anonymous suburbs.

Realistically, a week is probably a reasonable amount of time to explore the city.

Whatever time you devote touring in Rome, put your sneakers, take a good map with you and plan your time carefully, and the city will seem less overwhelming than it first appears.

And remember that, no matter if you are a student in the arts, humanities, architecture, social sciences, international business, or any other major, Rome is the ideal city in which you can learn,live, explore and also meditate.

Nowhere else are so many centuries vibrantly blended as in Rome.

top