Discover Rome

Walk through the best known monuments of Ancient Rome, the Colosseo and the Foro Romano. Once the heart of a vast empire, the Forum was filled with extravagant buildings and crowded with people from all over the known world.

Discover outstanding masterpieces collected for the Vatican Museums since the early 1500s. You will see exceptional statues from antiquity, such as Laocoön and His Sons and the Apollo Belvedere, and stunning Renaissance paintings, notably in the Raphael Rooms with The School of Athens fresco.

The volcanic Alban Hills region, set within the Parco Regionale dei Castelli Romani, includes two crater lakes and thirteen picturesque towns founded in the pre-Roman era of Ancient Latium. They are collectively called "Castles of Rome" because they were later chosen by popes and prominent Roman families as cool places (literally) to establish their summer country estates.

Head up to the highest point of a town set on a long ridge above Lake Albano. It's said to occupy the site of the ancient citadel of Alba Longa, the mythical mother city of all ancient Latium towns, and, by extension, of Rome itself. Nowadays, its name, Castel Gandolfo, is synonymous with the official summer residence of the Pope: the Papal Palace, or Apostolic Palace, built in the 1600s on the site of one of the emperor Domitian's palaces.

Explore the town which is perhaps the most elegant of the Castelli Romani with its villas and parks. Frascati is also widely known for its production of cheese, jams, and DOC white wines.

A half-day local guide, well-educated and specially-trained on the history and culture of Assisi, will accompany your group.

Step into the basilica built on the Hill of Paradise. It consists of two superimposed churches resting on a series of arches: the Lower Basilica, built over the crypt which contains the tomb of St. Francis, and the Upper Basilica, decorated with frescoes by 13th-century masters Giotto and Cimabue.

Visit the Basilica of Santa Chiara, built in the 13th-century. In its Oratory of the Crucifix, you will see the miraculous 13th-century San Damiano Crucifix that spoke to St. Francis (the crucifix was in Assisi's Church of San Damian at that time). In the Crypt, view the tomb of St. Clare, who was St. Francis' contemporary and the founder of the Order of Poor Clares.

Enter the Santuario de Santa Maria degli Angeli, which stands on the outskirts of town, to view the Porziuncola, the chapel where St. Francis prayed and received visions, as well as the Transitus Chapel built over the cell in which the beloved saint died in 1226.

Enjoy some free time in Rome today.