Rome Day Tours
High Quality Personalized Walking Tours

in Rome and the Vatican
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US Tel: +1(412)567-6968
Italian Mobile: +39.338.269.4683
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Touring Options

Target Audience: Individual couples, families or small groups of friends.
Image of Rich doing a private tour

Goal: The goal is to give you and your family or friends great tours while you are in Rome that can be personalized however you like. Experienced, educated, english speaking,... More than just a tour guide, but your own personal history professor with expertise in Ancient/ Medieval/ Renaissance Roman and European History. I will make the History of Rome come alive! Whether you have only a few hours or several days, I hope to make your visit to Rome the memory of a life time, without having to deal with any large impersonal tour operators.

Rich Brunn started up this company while finishing up his Masters while living here in Rome. While previously managing to support his own education as a professional tour guide for a good 3 years, he wanted to give people a professional and also a more personable means of contacting him directly. He has now received his Masters and is very content to have begun putting his education to further use by teaching Roman Topography (Ancient) and Medieval/ Renaissance Roman and European History, which both take advantage of Rome's role as a key documentary city for these phases of History as a member of St. Stephen's high school History faculty in Rome. Rich has gone on to receive his official touring license as an "Accompagnatore Turistico", which can be variously translated as "Tourist Companion" or "Tourist Guide".

This site is meant to provide a convenient option for people like yourself to cut out the middleman "tour operators" and get to know, contact and work with me personally.

Click here to send Rich your request: rich@rome-day-tours.com

Why have a tour in Rome? The more time I spend in Rome, the more I realize the truth in saying that “not even one lifetime is enough for Rome.”
Image of the Portico of Octavia

As the centuries go by in any major city, the ground level will tend to rise about 3 feet (on average) every 500 or so years. With Rome experiencing more than 2,000 years of continual habitation, it’s not all that uncommon to go walking through a modern or Renaissance area and have to look down about 20 feet to see the Ancient ground level.

Beyond the physical aspects of Rome’s historical layering (which can be greatly complicated in the midst of thousands of tourists), there is Rome’s seemingly endless list of important Emperors, Popes, Artists and Architects that have played some major role in creating this multi-layered topography. The cool thing though is to bring together many of these apparently isolated monuments into a logical and memorable whole for the casual visitor/tourist.

We'll see how Rome's monuments are such an interesting reflection of the changing cultural, political and religious dynamics that produced them over the centuries, with it certainly also being helpful that we're able to move right past large groups and get tickets in advance at even such crowded places as the Colosseum.

A Rome Day Tour through the Vatican on a very hot summer day, with Rich holding an ice pack!

Some typical walking tour suggestions:

Ancient Rome and the Vatican:
I suggest starting off with at least half-day (4-5 hour) tours to the Vatican (Museums, Sistine Chapel + St. Peter’s Basilica: tour details) and Ancient Rome (Colosseum, Palatine Hill + Forum: tour details). Click here to view an article that I wrote on the Arch of Constantine that may help illustrate some of the dynamism in Rome that you may hear about on any typical Rome Day Tour.

Historical Center:
This area is a complex layering of Rome's hundreds of years of history, art and architecture that makes for a fantastic introduction to the city. It is full of hidden treasures such as work by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Bernini etc and is an excellent mix between interiors and beautiful Renaissance and Baroque piazza's, fountains and facade's. The area contains such monuments as Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Jewish Ghetto and even the sight of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Click here for more tour details on this site.

Some specialized walking tour options:

Capitoline (Museums "Art"+ Imperial Forum "Architecture"):
The Capitoline Museums are THE oldest public museums in the world, covering a hill that started off more than 3,000 years ago boasting a unique record of being Rome's FIRST hill to be regularly inhabited centuries in fact before the others. The hill became Rome's political and religious center focused on the massive temple of Jupiter that became the very symbol of Rome itself and its infrastructure was amazingly enough only rediscovered middle of last century and is now one of the museums highlights. Nearby this is the oldest and still partially gilded equestrian bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius (Pictured top Right), along with ... click here for pictures and more tour details.

Ostia Antica:
Rome’s ancient port city of Ostia (which literally meant “at the mouth of the river”) served as Rome’s original Republican Colony and military outpost as well as a domestic landing for its cargo boats and warships during the Empire. It is still possible to feel the pace of everyday life for these working class citizens in this amazingly well preserved archaeological site, which is just 35 minutes from our meeting point in Rome on a direct train that costs just 1 euro/ person. Not only does Ostia have a Pantheon like structure, but having been abandoned just shortly after the...click here for pictures and more tour details.

“Path of the Enlightened (illuminati)": Dan Brown’s fictional best selling Rome based “Angels and Demons” has inspired countless visitors to come and see Bernini’s supposed “altars of science” along the “path of the enlightened” for themselves. This is an exciting story and wonderful introduction to the city, but people generally want to tour beyond the exaggerated basics in Rome, such as how the "fire chapel” is not actually in Piazza Barberini and although the West Ponente (“air alter”) actually exists, so do 15 other wind markers, etc. etc. Many people have appreciated how we’ve been able to move past the creative writing in order to understand these sites in their proper historical circumstances and not miss other very important near by treasures along the way.

Click here to send Rich your request: rich@rome-day-tours.com

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