Project Description

The Celio

Duration: approximately 3 hours

Visited sites: the Church of Santo Stefano Rotondo, the Celio hill, the Baths of Caracalla

You are a stone’s throw from the Colosseum and traffic, but once you pass through an arch, as if in a time machine, it will feel as if you are in ancient Rome at the end of the Empire.

The Church of Santo Stefano Rotondo dates back to the 5th century. Its circular shape is exceptional, the only example in Rome, for a church dating before the Renaissance. The magic of light that is cast from above is indescribable.

Our next stop will be the Alley of Scaurus, which has remained almost as it was at the dawn of Christianity. I will bring you to a parking lot. Perhaps, only in Rome are you able to find the ruins of a temple, built 20 centuries ago, in what is now a parking lot. Agrippina dedicated it to the memory of her husband Claudius. After poisoning him.

We will then end our tour with the magnificent Thermal Baths of Caracalla, that admitted 10,000 people each day. The ancient Romans had a saying “Women, wine and thermal baths destroy the man, but they lend pleasure to life.”

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