Walking Tour
45 mins
0.8mi
About the Tour
About the Tour
The Roman Forum is a treasure chest filled with history. Long a gathering place for the Roman tribes, the forum evolved with the city to become its seat of government. This process started 2700 years ago and continued for over a millennium.
Through the ups and downs of all these years, buildings were destroyed and replaced, turning the forum into a temporally eclectic museum, where artefacts from prehistory are found beside Renaissance palaces.
Join writer and historian Michael Anderson in imagining the passage of time here, where Caesar was assassinated and Cicero made speeches that echo through to the present. He'll connect you to the successes and failures of Rome, which is also a way of connecting with the with the civilizations that have inherited its culture.
Tour Producer
Tour Producer
Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson started an ancient history blog in 2008, which has been rated as one of the top blogs in this subject area. His goal is to bring ancient history to a broad audience and create more interest in a subject that deserves to be more widely known. His research also focuses on ancient political systems which act as models for those in operation today.
Mike has an undergraduate degree in engineering and a PhD in Information Science. He has also done significant work toward a Master’s degree in Philosophy.
In the past couple of years, Mike has begun to write books about contemporary American Politics. In 2017, he published his first book "The Progressive Gene: How Genetics Influence the Morality of the Left". He soon will be publishing his second book, "Tribalism: The Curse of 21st Century America".
Mike is also active on Quora, answering questions on ancient history, political systems, and contemporary American politics. He was rated a Quora “top writer” in 2018.
Map
Major Landmarks
Major Landmarks
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Curia Julia senate house
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Temple of Vesta
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House of the Vestal Virgins
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Arch of Titus
Directions to Starting Point
Directions to Starting Point
Start at the ticket booth off the Via Dei Fori Imperiali. You'll see a small road named Largo Della Salara Vecchia. It's on the left if you are walking away from the Colosseum.
Tips
Tips
Places to stop along the way
The forum does not have any services inside so taking bottled water is a good idea.
Best time of day
The Roman Forum opens at 8:30 every day and closes at different times seasonally, normally one hour before sunset. At the time of publishing, these were as follows:
- Last Sunday of October to 15 February: last admission at 15.30 - exit at 16.30
- 16 February to 15 March: last admission at 16.00 - exit at 17.00
- 16 March to last Saturday of March: last admission at 16.30 - exit at 17.30
- Last Sunday of March to 31 August: last admission at 18.15 - exit at 19.15
- 1 September to 30 September: last admission at 18.00 - exit at 19.00 *1 October to last Sunday of October: last admission at 17.30 - exit at 18.30
The forum is closed 1 January, 1 May, and 25 December.
Precautions
In summer, wear a hat if you are heat sensitive, or try to avoid the forum in the middle of the day. There is very little shade.
You'll also do a lot of walking on stone, so sturdy shoes are recommended.
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Decent historical explanation, with a good voice. Better than the official audio guide of the tourist venue. Only downside though is that the start point is unfortunately the end point of the official area. So you would need to do redundant walking. But other than that I recommend it.
Unfortunately, area marked as the start of the walk was in fact the end and vice versa. This resulted in a fair bit of extra walking. Also, sadly, the satellite navigation significantly legged movement throughout the property. Unless the commentary was quite good.
Enjoyable tour! Especially liked the stories of the Vestals and the added speeches and things. Only thing I would’ve liked would be an explanation of the other buildings and gardens that were missed out - as I opted for this instead of the audio guide there which were approx the same price but guttered to see this one stopped at the archway and didn’t continue on where as the tour guide on site does.