Educational Visits and Attractions in Rome Your trip so far... 1 Pick your ideal trip ✓ 2 Check availability ✓ 3 Receive your quotation ✓ 4 Personalise your trip Organise with our 5 travel experts Enjoy your great value 6 tailored trip Rome Personalise your trip Your trip so far... 1 Pick your ideal trip ✓ 2 Check availability ✓ Caption 3 Receive your quotation ✓ 4 Personalise your trip Rome Organise with our 5 travel experts Enjoy your great value Personalise your trip 6 tailored trip This guide details all the visits and attractions that we currently offer in Rome. All the options featured have been researched by our education and travel experts to ensure your trip meets your learning objectives and provides you and your students with a highly enjoyable trip. Contents School Favourites ..............3 Study Experiences – Best Value Sightseeing Tours ..............6 As one of the UK’s largest youth travel tour operators, our buying power means we can offer Visits & Attractions ............7 you the best value for your school or college. The visits and attractions options available will Free Visits & Attractions .......8 be arranged by our experienced education travel experts. Museums .....................10 Where to Eat .................12 Getting Around ...............12 How to Personalise your trip Notes ........................13 1. Please take time to have a good look through this guide. Each option details what it involves and the price; with some offering other useful information and top tips! 2. Having drawn up a list of all your desired options, contact your Programme Manager who will help create your personalised itinerary. 3. If there is a place of interest or attraction not detailed in this guide, we are more than happy to look into arranging a visit for you. 4. Once we have received your booking form and deposit payment we will then book all your chosen visits and attractions and confirm them to you. Study Experiences Cantium House, Railway Approach, Wallington SM6 0BP Your Study Experiences Team will be available throughout your booking, helping you create the ideal trip for your educational needs. Once your itinerary has been planned and your booking confirmed, your Programme Manager will introduce you to our Customer Service Delivery Team who will be available to help you throughout the build up to the trip itself. Of course, in Rome, our expert Tour Manager will be on hand to assist and support you and your students during the trip. 2 Call us on 020 8335 4455 – We’re here to help! School Favourites Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel The Vatican Museums were founded under the patronage of two 18th century popes, Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799), who were among the first to open collections of art to the general public for viewing, therefore promoting culture among the masses. Appropriately, the first building in the museum complex, the Pio-Clementine Museum, was named after these two pontiffs. As the decades passed, more popes added to the already impressive collection of diverse artworks owned and displayed by the Vatican. Today, there are 13 museums within the Vatican palaces that are included in the Vatican Museum complex. The many museums are quite diverse, nonetheless, each is interesting to explore and which you enjoy most will largely depend on your artistic preferences. The choice includes the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, the Vatican Pinacoteca, the Ethnological Missionary Museum, the Pio-Clementine Museum, the Collection of Modern Religious Art, the Pio Christian Museum and the Vatican Historical Museum, which provides a fascinating look at the long and sometimes turbulent history of the Vatican. One of the highlights is undoubtedly the Sistine Chapel. It takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. Sixtus started an ambitious programme of decoration within the chapel, by employing a team of the most prestigious artists of the day, including Botticelli, Signorelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli and Perugino. Their task was to cover the upper walls with frescoes depicting episodes from the lives of Moses and Christ. The ceiling vault was painted dark blue and covered with gold stars. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a shallow barrel vault, about 40m long by 13m wide. In 1506, Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to redecorate much of the chapel. Commissioned by Julius II in 1508-12, Michelangelo frescoed the vault with scenes from Genesis. Together with the older frescoes of the lives of Moses and Christ, these provided a complete history of Man, from creation to redemption. Michelangelo was later commissioned by Pope Paul III to continue the story with a fresco of the Last Judgement over the altar. St Peter’s Basilica The basilica is located within the walls of the Vatican, in Saint Peter’s square. It is not the Pope’s official ecclesiastical seat, this is Saint John Lateran, but St Peter’s Basilica is his principal church, where most Papal ceremonies take place, due to its size, proximity to the Papal residence and location within the City walls of the Vatican. It is claimed that St Peter’s Basilica was built at the site of Peter’s crucifixion. Beneath the main altar there is another altar dedicated to St Peter. Recent excavations have discovered a burial chamber beneath this altar containing a skeleton, with its feet missing. Some archaeologists, amongst others, have suggested that these are the actual remains of Saint Peter. The interior, which includes 45 altars, has been decorated by many famous artists. Some of the most important works in the church are the Pietà by Michelangelo and the papal altar and the Throne of St. Peter, both by Bernini. The dome or cupola was designed by Michelangelo, when he became chief architect in 1546. When he died in1564, the dome had only been finished as far as the base on which the dome itself sits. Between 1585 and 1590, the architect Giacomo della Porta, with the help of the predominant engineer of the time, Domenico Fontana, constructed the dome. Colosseum One of the most immediately recognisable historic buildings in the world, the Top Tip: Guided Colosseum is located at the foot of Mussolini’s Via dei Fori Imperiali. The Colosseum, tours can be with originally about eighty entrances, was designed to hold approximately 50,000 quoted for on spectators. The entrances were numbered and some of the Roman numerals above the request entrances are still visible. The Roman emperor Vespasian started to build the Email us at [email protected] – We’re here to help! 3 Roman Forum amphitheatre in 72 A.D. although he died before its completion. It was still not fully finished, when it was opened by Vespasian’s son Titus in 80 A.D. with games that lasted for 100 days. The works were eventually completed by Titus’s brother, Domitian. The entrances were marked by giant porticoes, over which were gilded horse drawn chariots. The emperor had his own private entrance, which led under the seats, emerging in the imperial box. The amphitheatre is a vast ellipse with tiers of seating around a central elliptical arena. The arena itself had a wooden floor, below which was a complex of storage rooms and passageways. Eighty walls radiate from the arena and support vaults for passageways, stairways and the tiers of seats. Around the outer edge, there are arcades and stairways linking each level. The partial destruction of the Colosseum allows a view of the basement area of the arena. This was not part of the original design and so was not present when the Colosseum opened, but was added later during the rule of Domitian who was emperor 81-96 A.D. In this confined space, a range of animals, fighters, slaves and stagehands worked in almost total darkness. A series of winches and the capstans would have allowed teams of slaves to hoist heavy objects from the basement to the main arena. Marks from the ropes are still visible in the stone lift-shafts. The Colosseum’s exterior is created by three storeys of superimposed arches with semi-circular columns. The design of the columns differ on each storey, with Tuscan at the bottom, then above that, Ionic, with Corinthian style columns on the third storey. The higher fourth storey has pilasters decorated with Corinthian capitals. In between the pilasters are small rectangular windows and above and between the windows are stone plinths, which once held the masts used to support the awnings, which were installed to help produce shade for some of the spectators. If you look upwards, you can still see the holes through which these vertical masts slotted. Guided tours can be quoted for on request. Roman Forum Top Tip: Guided The Roman Forum starts near the Colosseum and continues all the way to Piazza tours can be Venezia. Forums could be found in every city in the Roman Empire. Rome itself had quoted for on more than one forum, but only the first forum was called Forum Romanum, or Roman request Forum. Emperors, recognising the social importance of the forum, would build new ones in their own honour. Originally the area on which the Roman Forum is built was a swamp; the area was used as a cemetery by the people who lived in nearby villages. During the 6th century B.C. the Etruscans who were the first kings of Rome, unified all these villages into the city of Rome, drained the marshes, and soon, shops and temples were being built. During the 2nd century B.C. the merchants and their shops were moved to other parts of the city and the Forum became the civic and legal centre of Rome. Some of the major attractions to be explored include the Arch of Septimius Severus, which is one of the best preserved structures in the Forum and contains the remains of an inscription to Septimius and his two sons, Caracalla and Geta; and the Rostra, 4 Call us on 020 8335 4455 – We’re here to help! which was used for public speaking, and was the place where Mark Anthony delivered his speech after the assassination of Julius Caesar.