By Cathy H. Burroughs, International Travel Writer & Adventure Blogger, journeyPod.com
Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar. – George Elliot
Whether you’ve visited or not, you know Rome – from Fellini films, Audrey Hepburn romances and 100’s of other movies whose makers fell in love and made us, too, fall in love with the “Eternal City.” Known also as the “Capital of the World,” Rome dominated Europe and the known world 3000 years ago for 2000 years. Revered as one of our greatest capitals, the global city “Caput Mundi” is the 3rdmost visited in the European Union, as well as one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe, becoming the third capital of Unified Italy from Florence in 1870.
In spite of her multitude of issues, Roma, built originally on seven famed hills, is an intoxicating, lusty, artful and lively sprawl of impenetrable remains. Epic in scope, history, art, cuisine, opera and influence, Rome is noted for its colossal monuments, amphitheaters, chariot courses, edifices, temples, and squares with 280 fountains, 900 churches, catacombs, and even its own sub city: the Vatican. Our three days of Hop On/ Hop off Bus, albeit wonderful, were just not going to cut it.
Rome must be explored preferably in the hands of passionate, brilliant and inspired docents of which both Through Eternity Tours (www.througheternity.com) and Context Travel (www.contexttravel.com) have many – all fluent in English who handle logistics and “skip the line” tickets in intimate semi-private and private groups. Quite remarkable as well as rigorous, these lyrically-conceived tours uncover hidden secrets and little known nuggets. They reveal sometimes sinister stories, often dreamy and mystical, and packed to the gills with history, content and context with an eye for beauty and transcendent experience.
Through Eternity and Back!
Through Eternity Tours offers in-depth explorations of Rome, The Vatican, Florence, Tuscany and Pompeii and Context Tours provides scholarly adventures sometimes on paths less travelled by to over 60 cities including Rome and its surrounds. Endorsed by Rick Steves, Frommer’s and Lonely Planet, these tours are, indeed, gateways through time both on and off the beaten path, early morning, day and evening, by land and watery cruise excursions.
Julius Ceasar’s Final Night
With Through Eternity Tours we covered some serious ancient ground: The Forum Rome’s political, religious and social center dating from 500 BC, against the starry Roman night (eerie, magical, not to be missed) and tracking the step by step of Julius Caesar’s final night (talk about bringing history to life) with an erudite Princeton graduate student who quoted Dylan Thomas. Another eve we descended the Spanish Steps to troll the fountains and squares by moonlight with their sometimes morbid pasts (thrilling, cinematic, romantic, and, of course, culminating with the requisite three coin toss into the Trevi Fountain – Audrey Hepburn again!).
For this “Rome at Twilight Tour among the Piazzas and Fountains”Rosario the very kind co-owner of the tour company graciously joined us. We thoroughly enjoyed his company in this stroll at dusk in the “City of Love”!
Vatican City and the Coliseum as a VIP
Additionally, we joined Through Eternity for the intense VIP Vatican – a city within a city (who knew each Pope had their own Pope Mobile or that Michelangelo’s masterpiece Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco is most surprising, dare I say garish almost, as restored to its original colors); the VIP multi-tiered Coliseum (do prepare with some hardcore steps classes in advance – seriously) with not one, or two, but three guides all animating the sensory immersion into these life and death contests held here in its 5-levels for crowds from 50,000, up to 80,000. The scene was recreated: its battalion of exotic animals and prospective gruesome deaths of gladiator slaves and prisoners all vying for one more day of life and their freedom.
Our guides posited that many of these super stars of ancient times may have actually endured due to the prohibitive costs of maintaining, training and costuming the fighters and producing these wildly popular extravagant blood games. Worth considering!?
Nero’s Gold Palace
One thrilling evening we had access to the exclusive Domus Aurea, an active and relatively newly re-opened archaeological site, investigating Emperor Nero’s Golden House. With hard hats we were among the privileged to descend into the private world of the vast palace and grounds. There in this subterranean submersion a virtual reality induction carried us to a dreamlike, somnambulant state.
Time-traveling, we actively engaged with the inner décor and intricate wall paintings in its caverns, its octagonal domed fountain hall, as well as exterior pavilions, porticos, baths, fountains, ornamental gardens and artificial lake. This would later be drained to make space for the Coliseum which would turn out to be the largest amphitheater ever built in the Roman Empire. All that we saw and experienced was the private creation of Nero, one of Rome’s most controversial leaders. You know the one, said to have fiddled while the city burned so he could sweep up a batch of real estate on the cheap. Circa 646 AD. Sound familiar?
Context Travel: the Road Less Traveled By
Jewish Ghetto
Myself and my photographer participated in two other extraordinary tours by another exceptional and sustainable tour company Context Travel who delivers “deep travel” in both intimate and private groups for “the intellectually curious,” often along paths less trodden. We wish we could have done more.
Walking in the Steps of the Jewish Ghetto
Both our scholarly tour guides were steeped in knowledge and experience: the fast-talking, fast-moving, and dynamic Dony Ariza took us along the route of the bohemian, centuries old Trastevere, which edges up to the River Tiber, and the Jewish Ghetto established in 1555. The tour includes access to the Synagogue and Cavallini frescoes for an additional fee and such heart-breaking tales of how Jewish children, whose religion was opposed, were abducted and brought up apart from their families and the often horrific conditions the families were required to cope with.
A Nearby Excavation Exceeding Pompeii: Ostia Antica
Superwoman archaeologist Livia Galante took us on a heroic jaunt, just 30 minutes from the Coliseum, which began on the rattling train from the Piramide Metro, bringing us to the remarkably preserved 2,000 year old recovered seaport of Ostia Antica. Founded in 620 BC, Rome’s ancient oceanfront port ruin supported up to 60,000 people and includes a large amphitheatre still used today; a market for ship owners and traders for importing and exporting and examples of intricate brick work and painted mosaics that helped date the various building periods. There at its heart is an elaborate bath with heated pools which served as the city’s social center complete with running water.
We found possible evidence of central heating, and indoor plumbing as well and at their burial grounds the wealthy would pay for grave sites closest to the road to extend their immortality, as they would be remembered longer. Also there were sophisticated multi-storied tenements, and even a Chinese restaurant.
This site is said to exceed Pompeii in archeological completeness and complexity (and is much closer than the four hour journey to Pompeii). It illuminates this lost culture with unbelievable detail and evidence of surprisingly modern advancements.
Unfortunately, our schedule would not allow us to join the company for the rare visit to the once posh resort and gardens of Tivoli in central Italy, home to Hadrian’s Villa, which inspired the naming of Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens.
In addition to these, this fine tour company offers up sophisticated immersions in more than 60 cities. These include Tokyo, Mexico City, Istanbul, all over the Americas, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East.
Through Eternity Tours
www.througheternity.com
Office@througheternitytours.com
1-800-267-7581
Context Travel
www.contexttravel.com
info@contexttravel.com
1-800-691-6036
Big thank you to Rob and Rosario at Through Eternity Tours, Paul and Nick of Context Travel and both companies phenomenal team and guides for bringing Rome to life so magnificently!
For four months in Barcelona, South of France and Italy, travel writer/adventure blogger Cathy H. Burroughs together with her photographer visited Tuscany including the capitals of Venice/Lido, Florence, Lucca and, here, Rome. She then went on to four months in Greece, Spain and Portugal, a month in Martinique, and then more than four months on the US’s West Coast. Thanks in good part to www.homeexchange.com for allowing her to realize her dream of affordable and extended, sometimes, global, travel. This is one of the resulting adventures.
