Ciao! In this tour, you can see the beautiful streets of Rome: Piazza del Popolo & the massive Obelisk, the Main street Via Del Corso, the tomb of the first Emperor of Rome & the Pantheon.
Since the 18th century, this area, with popular sights such as the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain as well as numerous lesser-known churches and piazzas, has been a favourite with visitors from all over the world. The area also offers plenty of good opportunities for window-shopping and people-watching.
Known as the Tridente, this area is defined by three streets – Via di Ripetta, Via del Corso and Via del Babuino – that cut straight through this part of the centro storico, converging at Piazza del Popolo like an arrowhead. Much of the area is pedestrianized – Via del Corso is closed to cars, but not buses, in the evenings, and there are plans to further pedestrianize the zone. Join in the early evening passeggiata, when Romans strut their stuff on the designer shopping streets: Via Condotti, Via del Babuino and Via del Corso.
The huge, oval Piazza del Popolo has an Egyptian obelisk flanked by water-spouting lions in its centre and a grand stone gate where the Via Flaminia, which runs all the way to the Adriatic Sea, enters the city. The outer face of the gate was decorated with stone bobbles copied from the coats of arms of the Medici Pope who commissioned it. The inner face, decorated with “Chigi” jelly moulds and stars, was created by Bernini in 1655 on the orders of Pope Alexander VI Chigi. Chigi wanted to impress Queen Christina of Sweden, who had just converted to Catholicism and was coming to live in Rome.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, hundreds of wealthy (and many famous) travellers entered Rome through the piazza gate. However, their first taste of Rome may well have been terrifying – Piazza del Popolo was a place of execution, and the English poet Lord Byron arrived in 1871 to see three criminals being beheaded. Others made their entry to witness riderless horse races down the Via del Corso, in which the horses were given spiked saddles and fed stimulants to make them run faster.
Santa Maria dei Miracoli & Santa Maria in Montesanto.
Located at the southern end of Piazza del Popolo are two 17th-century churches, cleverly designed by local architect Carlo Rainaldi. Thanks to him it seems that the three streets cutting down through the centro storico, known as “Il Tridente“, form a perfect triangle, when they actually do not.
To give the appearance of symmetry, it was essential that the twin churches looked identical despite the fact that the site on the left was narrower. So Rainaldi gave Santa Maria dei Miracoli (on the right) a circular dome, and Santa Maria in Montesanto an oval one to squeeze it into the narrower space, while keeping the sides of the supporting drums that faced the piazza identical. Remember to stand in the centre of the piazza, in front of the obelisk, to judge this visual trick.
The Mausoleum of Augustus, where the emperor and his family were buried. The mausoleum is currently undergoing restoration and there are plans to re open it – 2,000 years after Augustus died in AD 14 – as part of a pedestrianized Tridente zone.
The end of the tour is by the Pantheon. The world’s best-preserved Roman building, the Pantheon, according to one version, was designed by the goddess Cybele. In fact, the designer was probably Emperor Hadrian (r.117–138), who is said to have been inspired by contemplating a pumpkin. Whatever the truth, stepping inside the Pantheon is an incredible experience, especially on sunny days, with the sunlight streaming in through the hole, or oculus, at the top of the dome, and on rainy days too, when water pours in.
