When I first moved to Rome I lived near the Colosseum and walked through the Colle Oppio park, passing by the ruins of Trajan’s bathhouse, a few times a day.  Shortly after, a section of Nero’s “Golden House”, the Domus Aurea, was opened in the park – then closed  and reopened numerous times.  In the 18 years since, I’ve never been able to coordinate a visit, so when we were invited by Through Eternity Tours on a private, small, walking tour of the site, I accepted without hesitation.

A brief history lesson:

Before the Colosseum was built, the area from the Palatine Hill all the way up the Oppian hill, almost to Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline hill, was residential and considered the countryside.  The big fire of Rome in 64 AD burned this area down and Emperor Nero, taking advantage of a law that gave him the right to reclaim the land, took possession of this vast area and decided to build an enormous palace.  It stretched from the Palatine hill, over the Celian and Oppian hills, all the way to the Esquiline hill.  No one knows for sure how big it was, but estimates are between 100-300 acres.

Nero also commissioned a 35 meter tall, bronze statue of himself at the entrance, called the Colossus Neronis, made to look like a Greek god of the sun, which was so, uh, colossal, that later on in the middle ages people started calling Flavian’s Ampitheater, built after Nero’s death by Vespasian in the middle of what was an artificial lake, the Colosseum.

The Domus Aurea

Needless to say, it was a not only large, but also amazingly adorned.  So much gold leaf that it was called the “Golden House”.  Precious stones, ivory, frescoed walls, mosaics – you name it.

Then:

Now:

After Nero’s death, on the section of the palace on the Oppian hill, where a large part of the palace was, both Titus and Trajan built large bathhouses, filling in the palace with earth that was probably dug out of what is now Trajan’s Forum.  For a long time people thought the ruins of the Domus Aurea were just part of the baths of Trajan, but later it was realised that they were part of something much larger.  And since it was all buried, the frescoes were preserved until they were discovered in the 15th century.

The story goes that a young Roman fell into what he thought was a cave (grotta in Italian) and he discovered the fresco paintings.  Soon after, lots of artists, now considered some of the best artists of the Renaissance, would shimmy down by rope and study the frescoes by candlelight.  This style, later to be called “grotesque”, which comes from the term “grottesche”, or “cave-like”, was a huge inspiration to the renaissance masters.

The Tour

All visitors wanting to tour the Golden House have to do it with a guide by appointment.  Since we went with Through Eternity, our tickets and appointment were all sorted and we entered, put on our hard hats, and got a tour by the site’s employee, with our Through Eternity guide present to add detail, context, and explanations that went beyond the expertise of the staff that lead you around.

The visit is well done – there’s a few videos that help show you where you are and what you’re looking at.  There’s a virtual reality headset that literally puts you in the 2000 year old house, spins you around, takes you outside to feel the sun on your face and see the grass blowing next to you.  It is so incredibly well done that you really feel like you’re there.

Our Guide and guides in general

The best, and in my opinion, essential part, was Enrica, the tour guide who works with Through Eternity.  The amount they show you in the actual Domus Aurea is interesting, and they do a good job explaining what it was and what it looked like and what challenges they face in maintaining it and uncovering more of the art within, but to really have it click, you need someone like Enrica who can frame the visit around a bigger discussion of history and the Roman Empire in general.

After the tour, which lasts about an hour and a half, Through Eternity takes you to the most amazing rooftop terrace overlooking the Colosseum for an aperitivo and drink and further discussion about what you’ve seen and the history of Rome.

Before we had begun our tour, Enrica had brought us to the front of the Colosseum and gave us an overview of the entire area, explaining the changes the area saw from the Roman Republic through the Julius/Agustus line to Nero and up to the middle ages.  This helped a lot when we then went into the Domus Aurea because with all things historic, context is everything.

Afterward, on the terrace, we continued our discussion about history, and about the challenges tour guides currently face.  To be a licensed guide in Rome is no easy task.  It takes a hell of a lot of knowledge and passion, and to be good at it also requires tireless people skills.   Unfortunately, many companies and platforms have tried to capitalise on experiences by making any old Joe a tour guide and selling his time.

There’s a big difference though between someone who wants to make a few bucks by leading tourists around, and someone whose entire life is history and being a professional guide.

The Domus Aurea is a one of a kind archeological site, and Enrica is a one of a kind guide.  I strongly recommend the combo to everyone.  And, of course, organising it all with Through Eternity means you get to do this at the end:

Cross-Pollinate blog readers receive a 10% discount on all Through Eternity tours.  Does not include the Underground Colosseum or Early Entrance Vatican tours.  Use the promo code:  BEEHIVE on their site when making a booking.

I’m just going to jump in and say it – if you go to the Vatican museums on your own, unguided, you’re wasting your time.

I’ve lived in Rome, on and off at first, for the last 20 years and had been to the Vatican only once.  I suppose part of that is because it’s what happens to people when they live near a tourist site – you assume you can go anytime because it’s right there, and prefer to wait for a time when it’s less crowded, which never happens.   That’s a good explanation for why I didn’t go for the first 5 years of living here.  The reason why I’d never gone back in the following 15 years is because the experience, frankly, wasn’t enjoyable.  I’ve had visits to the dentist’s office that were better.

Does anyone really enjoy the Vatican museums?  I’ve wondered this often as I hear our guests recount the days they dutifully spend there, first in line outside, then being herded through the labyrinthian hallways to catch a glimpse of the Sistine Chapel.  Despite it being on everyone’s must see list, I’d never heard anyone go on about how amazing it was and how they wish they could have more of it.  For the art historian, I can see how it would be like a kid in a candy store.  But for the average Joe, I always wondered what they actually got out of it.

When my wife said she’d booked us on a 5 hour tour of the museums and St. Peter’s with Through Eternity, I first felt that this would be a great opportunity to see if I could finally, with authority, substantiate my negative opinions of the museum.  Then reality hit and I wondered how on Earth I was going to make it through 5 hours of anything.  Then I just gave up worrying about it and went with it, as zen and open as possible.

Spoiler alert – the Vatican is pretty incredible.  However, it’s not an easy museum, and it’s not optimized for its visitors in any way.  And I’m 100% convinced that it wouldn’t have been worthwhile had I wandered through it by myself without a guide.  In the end, we were there 6 hours, and all of it, except the overpriced food, was great.

A visit to the Vatican Museums is a big commitment and as is true with all big commitments, you should be well informed.  For example – know that if you go on your own without booking ahead, you’re looking at a really long wait to get in:

Perhaps an hour?  Maybe more?  As the picture shows, these folks look like they’ve been there a while already, and this line stretches all the way down the street and around the corner.  This is, of course, the line for those who decided to show up without tickets. If you buy your ticket online and print it before arrival, you can jump this queue and go right to the entrance.  From there, visitors are divided into two categories: individuals and group tours.  If you’ve booked a tour with a guide, then you get even further preferential treatment.  We walked straight past the line for individuals and went right in.  I don’t even think we came to a full standstill.  For a museum that gets about 25,000 visitors A DAY, that’s pretty incredible.

Once inside, you’re part of a crush of humanity, all wandering slowly, trying to determine where to put your attention – because there’s so many options.  Our guide, Mario, told us that if you were to spend a few seconds in front of each painting in the entire complex, it would add up to about 25 years.

Here’s the thing – there are some wonderful,  beautiful paintings in the Vatican Museums and if you want to visit unguided, you can stroll around and look at lots of pretty paintings and sculpture on a variety of themes, like Jesus, Jesus and Mary, Mary by herself, the Apostles, Jesus being crucified, Jesus being resurrected…  I think you get my point – Catholicism is the main attraction.  For someone who’s not religious, and doesn’t recognize the characters in the paintings or the stories being depicted, there’s only so much you can take of this.  Maybe I’m just shallow and uncultured, but in the 1500′s it would have been amazing to see a painting that was realistically portrayed of a biblical scene.  It would have been amazing to see a painting of anything that you had never before seen in real life – like a certain city or an animal or maybe the seaside.  Throughout history, paintings were the only way to really see into someone else’s imagination, or a depiction of something outside your reality.

In 2016…  less so.

My point is that I think realistically and honestly, it’s hard for many people to get out of paintings what people got out of them centuries ago.  We’re jaded.  We’ve seen it all – and in full motion, in 3D, and Photoshopped to perfection.  Seeing pretty pictures just isn’t that amazing anymore.  What makes them amazing, and interesting, is to understand them and the time in which they were made and the history behind them.  It’s the technique and how it evolved.  It’s the politics and motivations that surround them.  It’s the life of the artists themselves.  It’s all about the context, and to get that, you either need to study art seriously, or you need a guide.

Mario, our guide, was not only well informed and passionate, but also theatrical and compelling.  Our visit combined the history of art, and how artists cultivated different techniques in different periods, to the history of religion itself and how religion and politics were (and in many cases still are) inseparable.

The visit to the museum, at that point, became a lot more than about just art.  I think to fully understand Western history, you need to understand Rome, and to fully understand Rome, you need to understand its relation to the church.  To understand that, and even more, to see it, you need to visit the Vatican Museums.

Some other tips about visiting the Museum & Saint Peter’s Basilica:

* The food is terrible and overpriced, so bring a pack lunch.  If you leave after the museum to go eat, and then want to visit St. Peter’s, you’ll have to queue again, whereas if you go from the museum to St. Peter’s, you don’t have to.

* Bring little kids – if you’re crazy, a masochist, and/or a glutton for punishment.  It’s just too crowded, too slow going, and too complex for them to enjoy it (in my opinion as the father of 3 daughters).

* Get there by metro or bus.  You could walk, but it’s exhausting to stand for hours in a museum.  Get there on a full tank, because you’ll be leaving on an empty one.

* Don’t forget to wear something that covers or can cover your knees and shoulders.  It’s a sacred place, and God is weird about knees and shoulders.

* You don’t need a passport.  Yes, the Vatican  is technically a separate country, but there’s no border patrol.

* Plan to go up the dome of St. Peter’s.  You can pay to take an elevator from the bottom to halfway, inside of the dome, looking down into St. Peter’s, and then you climb up through the dome itself to the very top.  If you’re into taking photos, this is a must.

* If you want to hear the Pope’s audience on Wednesday or Sunday, get tickets in advance online, come pick them up before, and them come super early to get a good seat (like 5:30 / 6 am).  Francesco is a popular Pope.  He fills the house.

* Most importantly, go by yourself, and you’ll just be spending hours looking at old, pretty pictures.  Book a tour with a well informed guide.

Thank you to Through Eternity who hosted me on this tour.  Through Eternity is one of only a handful of tour companies we have recommended over the years and if you are staying at our hostel, The Beehive, guests there get an additional discount using a promo code.