Best virtual tours of Rome
In the moving emptiness of the streets, Rome appears to me as the most beautiful city in the world. Once the Caput Mundi, now the Eternal City, this town preserves an unbelievable heritage, and you can still experience part of it while staying home. Thanks to technology, is it possible to explore Rome’s monuments, archeological sites, and museums with virtual tours available online for free. In this post, you will discover the best virtual ways to admire the marvelous beauty of the Eternal City from your desk or couch. Moreover, you will find two unique ways to travel back to the past and explore Rome, as you have never seen before. So, get ready to visit Rome’s famous attractions and hidden gems from home.
How to discover Rome from home
Among all the best virtual tours in Rome, the Vatican Museums offer the most complete and better-curated ones. On the official website of the Vatican Museums, you can select one of the seven tours offered. These include the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s Rooms, whose 500th death anniversary falls in 2020. Moreover, the Vatican Museums grant free virtual access to their antiquities collection in the Pio Clementino Museum and in the New Wing. While not offered as a virtual tour, the Vatican Museums make available to online visitors many of their masterpieces. For instance, if you decide to visit the Pinacoteca or Art Gallery, you can click on the single room to see enlarged and detailed images of the most prominent artworks. Interesting commentaries about the artwork accompany all this iconographic material.
Best archeological areas in Rome to visit online
The Markets of Trajan offers the best virtual archeological tour in Rome. By clicking on the map, you can select the areas to visit, from the ground floor great hall to the archeological area of Trajan’s forum. Each navigable section offers a clickable description, so the virtual visit sounds like a proper virtual archeological tour of a highlight in Rome. But what makes this virtual tour exceptional is the view from the Belvedere terrace overlooking the Fori Imperiali. The view itself helps every visitor to immerse in the magical atmosphere of Rome, where archeological ruins coexist with the Middle Age and Renaissance buildings. While taking a virtual tour of Rome from the Trajan’s Markets, do not miss a view of the top of the Colosseum. Moreover, the Musei Capitolini are accessible with virtual tours. These bring visitors inside the Palazzo dei Conservatori with the original equestrian sculpture of Marcus Aurelius and in Palazzo Nuovo to admire the Venere Capitolina.
A Romantic tour of Rome
The Morgan Library, one of the best, less touristy places to visit in NYC, hosted a few years ago an online exhibition dedicated to Rome. Named the City of Soul, from the nickname used by Lord Byron to define the Eternal City, the display shows an incredibly unique way to explore Rome from home. Through an interactive map based on Paul-Marie Letarouilly’s 1841 plan of Rome, visitors can discover some of the highlights of the 1870 August Hare’s guidebook Walks in Rome. By clicking on the pinned location, you can zoom in and get more information about the selected area in the form of a poem extract and an old painting’s description. You can experience Rome in this unique way by clicking here.
Hidden Rome discoverable on virtual tours
Off the beaten track in Rome is my field of expertise and the Aventino keeps underground some secret treasures. Among them, there are the Mitreo di Santa Prisca, the Domus in via Marcella, and Casa Bellezza. The Mitreo of Santa Prisca lies under the same name church and in its speleum (cave where the god was supposedly born) there is an unconventional representation of the god Saturn lying down. The walls are decorated with frescoes representing the initiation phases into the cult of Mithras and their corresponding planets. In the same area, the Domus of via Marcella is an underground 5-rooms house under a 1920s villa. Moreover, the Aventino has another beautiful Domus or ancient Roman-era house in via Largo Arrigoni VII. Known as Casa Bellezza has its highlight in the Room of Columns.
Rome virtual tours
A stunning yet unusual virtual tour to take in Rome is inside the Quirinale, house of Presidency of the Italian Republic. Differently from other tours, this 360 online visit offers a complete experience, showing places along with a voice-over guided tour explaining what you are seeing. The tour includes a visit inside the palace, with the Hall of the Mirrors, the Great Ballrooms. Not to miss is the view of the Scala del Mascherino. The Quirinale website allows visitors to enjoy a tour of the Gardens during a bright, sunny day. Moreover, people can also visit Villa Rosebery in Naples. The tour starts with a view over mount Vesuvius from the terrace of the Large Guest House. Furthermore, Quirinale offers some exhibitions available as a virtual tour, like one of the Neapolitan Nativity creche.
Discover Rome’s heritage from home
Among the best virtual tours that allow you to discover the beauty of Rome from home, there is one that brings you inside the Ara Pacis. Under this name is an altar consecrated in the 9 BC to celebrate the victorious return of emperor Augustus from the campaigns in Spain and Gaul. Processional friezes decorate the north and south flank of the altar, while mythological panels decorate the short side. Another way to admire the rich archeological heritage of Rome from home is by taking a tour via Rome Reborn. Under this name is a 3D digital model of the Eternal City created to make the monuments of Ancient Rome easily understandable to non-experts. The entire project encompasses apps, different VR tours. These are available for buying, but the site offers free preview and some videos.
VR of Rome’s catacombs and necrópolis
Rome’s underground is rich in necropolis and catacombs, used by early Christians as burials. Carved in the tuff, these structures, usually formed by tunnels with chambers, are discoverable also from home. For instance, the Vatican makes accessible the Necropolis of the Via Triumphalis. It is very useful to take a look at the topographic map before starting the tour to have an idea of the location and dimension of this place. Moreover, Google makes available for everyone at home a visit inside the Catacombs of Priscilla on the via Salaria, in the north area of Rome. Named after an early martyr, this is a relatively small catacomb containing features peculiar to underground burials.
Unusual places to visit in Rome
There is a museum in Rome dedicated to celebrating the Napoleonic period. This is the Museo Napoleonico that presents the collections of Count Giuseppe Primoli, the great-grandson of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte. Close to Palazzo Altemps and Piazza Navona, it is discoverable from home. The tour provides information about the collection and offers photos with details of some artworks. Among the gems of Rome, visitable online, there is the Casino of Villa Torlonia. Designed by Neoclassicists architect Giuseppe Valadier, it includes two must-sees: the Ballroom and Alessandro’s room. A unique place to visit is a restaurant in Rome set inside the former art atelier of sculptor Antonio Canova and his pupil Adamo Tadolini, visitable on a virtual tour. Among the dark, deep red walls of this former atelier, there are large scale casts, and sculptures decorate the spaces.
