Rome Undergrounds Full Day Guided Tour

The day spent with Alessandro on the Underground Tour was the highlight of our stay in Rome. His English is excellent, his car spacious and air-conditioned, and he knows his Roman history and Rome. Even before the day of the excursion, he explained that one of the underground attractions was closed and offered alternatives. We opted to see Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli and had a wonderful day full of contrasts. Two churches in Rome proper (San_Clemente_al_Laterano and Santa _Cecilia_in_Trastevere), which allowed us to understand the layering of Roman history, with excavations of Roman-era buildings and objects in the basements of the churches. One of the two catacombs along the Appian Way, where we could see how the early Christians were buried. And then an afternoon in Hadrian's Villa, a complex of ruins of around 30 buildings. Alessandro provided us with visuals of what the individual buildings had looked like which helped us understand much better the grandeur of the place. Alessandro was an excellent guide throughout the day, always concerned to point out details and highlights, and always ready to answer questions. Thank you for a great adventure!

We lucked out with Alessandro. He is mellow and scholarly and easy to understand. He has a comfy car and he brought us places we never would have found ourselves. Among other places we went to San_Clemente_al_Laterano and Santa_Cecilia_in_Trastevere. Here is what I thought was so cool - the layers. Roman stuff in the subbasement, then 3d century on that, then 11th century, then 16th century. St Cecilia had a little room with the most beautiful early 20th century mosaics. We went other places too. We had an awesome lunch in the TransTibere neighborhood. It was high season and there were hardly any other tourists in any of these places we went! Alessandro kept my girls (12 and 15) interested and engaged. He functioned well as a tender to gently move me along from staring at Latin inscriptions (I do not read Latin). We had the morning available the next day and again by luck he was available for an ad hoc tour. He brought us to the Trevi fountain, the Fontana Della Bacaccia, a sweet museum about the old city wall, out along the beautiful Appian way to look at mausoleums and then dropped us off where our Vatican group tour was supposed to start. He went in and made sure it was right. I wish we had stayed with him for the Vatican. It was excellent and interesting stuff for all 4 of us, way more than we find on our own, and we are trying.