This 4 hour private tour focuses entirely on Ancient Rome: the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Roman Forum, with hotel pickup anywhere in Rome.
Your guide meets you at your hotel and takes you directly to the Colosseum, built under Emperor Vespasian starting around 70 AD and completed by his son Titus in 80 AD. At its height the arena had 76 numbered entrances, marble seating for around 50,000 spectators, retractable shade awnings, and a network of subterranean passages beneath the arena floor where gladiators, animals, and stage machinery waited before combats and, some historians believe, staged naval battles. Your guide accompanies you inside to explore the arena and explain its history.
Leaving the Colosseum, you pass the Arch of Constantine, dedicated in 315 AD to commemorate Constantine's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Your guide then leads you through the Roman Forum, the political, religious, and commercial center of Ancient Rome for over a thousand years. The surviving foundations, columns, and arches trace the site's use across the centuries when Rome controlled most of the known world.
The walking tour concludes at Capitoline Hill, the most sacred of Rome's seven hills and once home to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. You climb the sloping staircase designed by Michelangelo to the Piazza del Campidoglio, where a bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius stands at the center of a geometric star pattern in the pavement. To one side is the Capitoline Museums, and from the back of the square you get a view over the Roman Forum with the Colosseum rising in the distance.
After your walking tour, you are returned to your hotel.