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Roots Earth in Rome: audio stories about 57 places

Roots Earth is a self-guided audio guide app with audio stories about 57 places in Rome, Italy, in Europe. All 57 Rome places have audio stories in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Rome, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 57 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates and their local names. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 31 October 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: rome.md

The 57 places in Rome with audio stories

In the order the app shows them, with the local name after the English one where the catalogue carries one.

  1. Colosseum (Colosseo)
  2. Roman Forum (Foro Romano)
  3. Palatine Hill (Palatino)
  4. Pantheon
  5. Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi)
  6. Spanish Steps (Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti)
  7. Piazza Navona
  8. St. Peter's Basilica (Basilica di San Pietro)
  9. St. Peter's Square (Piazza San Pietro)
  10. Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani)
  11. Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina)
  12. Castel Sant'Angelo
  13. Capitoline Hill (Piazza del Campidoglio); locally Campidoglio
  14. Capitoline Museums (Musei Capitolini)
  15. Piazza Venezia
  16. Altare della Patria (Vittoriano); locally Vittoriano
  17. Trastevere
  18. Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere (Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere)
  19. Campo de' Fiori
  20. Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore)
  21. Archbasilica of St. John Lateran (Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano)
  22. Basilica of San Clemente (Basilica di San Clemente)
  23. Baths of Caracalla (Terme di Caracalla)
  24. Circus Maximus (Circo Massimo)
  25. Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità)
  26. Villa Borghese Gardens (Villa Borghese)
  27. Galleria Borghese
  28. Piazza del Popolo
  29. Ara Pacis
  30. Jewish Ghetto (Ghetto ebraico di Roma)
  31. Great Synagogue of Rome (Tempio Maggiore di Roma)
  32. Appian Way (Via Appia)
  33. Catacombs of San Callisto (Catacombe di San Callisto)
  34. Pyramid of Cestius (Piramide Cestia)
  35. Trajan's Column (Colonna Traiana)
  36. Trajan's Market (Mercati di Traiano)
  37. Imperial Fora (Fori Imperiali)
  38. Arch of Constantine (Arco di Costantino)
  39. Domus Aurea
  40. Ponte Sant'Angelo
  41. Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls (Basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura)
  42. Testaccio Market (Mercato di Testaccio)
  43. Testaccio
  44. Monti
  45. Pigneto
  46. Garbatella
  47. Quartiere Coppedè
  48. San Lorenzo
  49. EUR
  50. Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana
  51. Centrale Montemartini
  52. Aventine Keyhole (Buco della serratura dell'Aventino)
  53. Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci); locally Giardino degli Aranci
  54. Aventine Hill (Aventino)
  55. Janiculum Terrace (Belvedere del Gianicolo)
  56. MAXXI Museum (MAXXI)
  57. Ponte Milvio

Is there an audio guide for Colosseum?

Yes. Colosseum is one of the 57 Rome places in Roots Earth. It has a short introduction and a deeper story in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

Is there an audio guide for Roman Forum?

Yes. Roman Forum is one of the 57 Rome places in Roots Earth. It has a short introduction and a deeper story in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

Is there an audio guide for Palatine Hill?

Yes. Palatine Hill is one of the 57 Rome places in Roots Earth. It has a short introduction and a deeper story in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

How to use Roots Earth in Rome

Open Roots Earth and choose Rome. The city has its own map of places with all 57 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 57 places in Rome, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 57 places in Rome, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 31 October 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Colosseum

Local name
Colosseo
Coordinates
41.89021, 12.49223
In one line
The largest amphitheatre ever built in the ancient world, raised by the Flavian emperors between 72 and 80 and able to hold tens of thousands of spectators. Its stacked arcades and exposed underground passages remain the enduring symbol of imperial Rome.

2. Roman Forum

Local name
Foro Romano
Coordinates
41.8925, 12.48528
In one line
The civic and political heart of ancient Rome for over a thousand years, a low valley filled with temples, basilicas, and triumphal arches. Drained from marshland in the 7th century before the common era, it hosted elections, trials, processions, and public speeches.

3. Palatine Hill

Local name
Palatino
Coordinates
41.88944, 12.4875
In one line
The hill where tradition says Rome was founded in 753 before the common era, later the chosen home of emperors. Its terraced ruins of imperial palaces and gardens overlook the Forum and the Circus Maximus from above the ancient city.

4. Pantheon

Coordinates
41.89861, 12.47667
In one line
A Roman temple rebuilt under the emperor Hadrian around 126, crowned by the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built. Its open central oculus lets in light and rain, and its survival owes much to its conversion into a church in 609.

5. Trevi Fountain

Local name
Fontana di Trevi
Coordinates
41.90094, 12.4833
In one line
Rome's grandest Baroque fountain, designed by Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762 against a palace façade. Fed by an ancient aqueduct, it shows the sea god Oceanus in a shell chariot and draws crowds who toss coins to ensure a return.

6. Spanish Steps

Local name
Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti
Coordinates
41.90598, 12.48276
In one line
A monumental Baroque staircase of 135 steps, built between 1723 and 1726, linking Piazza di Spagna with the church of Trinità dei Monti above. Funded by a French legacy and named for the nearby Spanish embassy, it has long been a gathering place in Rome.

7. Piazza Navona

Coordinates
41.89898, 12.47306
In one line
A grand Baroque square that preserves the oval shape of an ancient Roman stadium beneath it. Transformed in the mid-17th century under Pope Innocent the Tenth, it centers on Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers and faces Borromini's church of Sant'Agnese in Agone.

8. St. Peter's Basilica

Local name
Basilica di San Pietro
Coordinates
41.90222, 12.45389
In one line
The largest church in Christendom, built over the traditional tomb of the apostle Peter. Begun in 1506 and consecrated in 1626, it carries Michelangelo's towering dome and Bernini's bronze canopy above the papal altar.

9. St. Peter's Square

Local name
Piazza San Pietro
Coordinates
41.90222, 12.45667
In one line
Bernini's vast Baroque piazza before Saint Peter's Basilica, framed by two curving colonnades of nearly 300 columns topped with statues of saints. An ancient Egyptian obelisk marks its center, and the design seems to gather visitors into welcoming arms.

10. Vatican Museums

Local name
Musei Vaticani
Coordinates
41.90643, 12.45355
In one line
One of the world's largest museum complexes, holding the papal art collections gathered over five centuries. Begun in 1506 around a single ancient statue, it now winds through galleries of sculpture, maps, and Renaissance frescoes toward the Sistine Chapel.

11. Sistine Chapel

Local name
Cappella Sistina
Coordinates
41.90289, 12.45444
In one line
The papal chapel built under Pope Sixtus the Fourth in the late 1400s, famous for Michelangelo's ceiling and Last Judgment. Its walls also carry frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio, and it remains the place where cardinals elect each new pope.

12. Castel Sant'Angelo

Coordinates
41.90306, 12.46639
In one line
A massive cylindrical monument on the Tiber, begun as the emperor Hadrian's tomb in the second century and later turned into a papal fortress, prison, and refuge. A bronze angel crowns its summit, recalling a medieval vision during a plague.

13. Capitoline Hill (Piazza del Campidoglio)

Local name
Campidoglio
Coordinates
41.8932, 12.48267
In one line
The most sacred of Rome's seven hills, once home to the great temple of Jupiter and now crowned by Piazza del Campidoglio, a civic square designed by Michelangelo from 1536, with its trapezoidal plan, ramped staircase, and twin palaces.

14. Capitoline Museums

Local name
Musei Capitolini
Coordinates
41.8931, 12.4828
In one line
Among the oldest public museums in the world, set in the palaces of Piazza del Campidoglio. Founded on a papal gift of bronzes in 1471, they hold the original Marcus Aurelius statue, the Capitoline Wolf, and the Dying Gaul.

15. Piazza Venezia

Coordinates
41.8958, 12.4827
In one line
A vast public square at the foot of the Capitoline Hill where several of Rome's main thoroughfares meet. Named after the Renaissance Palazzo Venezia, it became the symbolic heart of the city in the early twentieth century.

16. Altare della Patria (Vittoriano)

Local name
Vittoriano
Coordinates
41.89472, 12.48306
In one line
A vast white marble monument to Victor Emmanuel the Second, first king of a united Italy. Designed by Giuseppe Sacconi and was inaugurated in 1911 while still incomplete, it holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Italy's eternal flame.

17. Trastevere

Coordinates
41.88944, 12.46944
In one line
A historic district on the west bank of the Tiber whose name means "across the Tiber." Its narrow medieval lanes, ancient churches and lively trattorias preserve a strong local character and make it one of Rome's most atmospheric neighbourhoods.

18. Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere

Local name
Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere
Coordinates
41.88944, 12.46972
In one line
One of the oldest churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary, rebuilt in the twelfth century under Pope Innocent the Second. It is famed for its glittering apse mosaics, ancient reused columns and golden facade overlooking a lively Trastevere square.

19. Campo de' Fiori

Coordinates
41.89556, 12.47222
In one line
A historic square whose name means "field of flowers," home to a lively daily market since the nineteenth century. A brooding statue of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, burned here in 1600, marks the centre of this old place of trade and execution.

20. Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore

Local name
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Coordinates
41.8975, 12.49861
In one line
One of the four major papal basilicas of Rome, founded in the fifth century on the Esquiline Hill.

21. Archbasilica of St. John Lateran

Local name
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano
Coordinates
41.88583, 12.50639
In one line
The cathedral of Rome and seat of the pope as bishop of the city, founded by Constantine in the fourth century. Ranked first among the four papal basilicas, it pairs an ancient foundation with a baroque interior by Borromini and a grand facade by Galilei.

22. Basilica of San Clemente

Local name
Basilica di San Clemente
Coordinates
41.88944, 12.4975
In one line
A basilica east of the Colosseum where a 12th-century church sits over a fourth-century one, which rests in turn on Roman rooms and a temple of Mithras. Its golden apse mosaic and descending levels span nearly two thousand years.

23. Baths of Caracalla

Local name
Terme di Caracalla
Coordinates
41.87917, 12.4925
In one line
A vast imperial bathing complex inaugurated in 216 under the emperor Caracalla, once serving thousands of Romans at a time. Its towering brick walls, mosaic floors and ruined halls survive in a green archaeological park south of the Aventine Hill.

24. Circus Maximus

Local name
Circo Massimo
Coordinates
41.88611, 12.48556
In one line
The largest chariot-racing arena of ancient Rome, set in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills. Once holding well over 150,000 spectators, it survives today as a vast grassy field that still traces the outline of the original track.

25. Mouth of Truth

Local name
Bocca della Verità
Coordinates
41.88806, 12.48167
In one line
An ancient Roman marble mask carved with a bearded face, set in the portico of the church Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Medieval legend holds that it bites the hand of any liar, a tale made famous worldwide by the 1953 film Roman Holiday.

26. Villa Borghese Gardens

Local name
Villa Borghese
Coordinates
41.91417, 12.48472
In one line
One of Rome's largest public parks, laid out from 1605 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and later reshaped in English landscape style. Its 80 hectares hold gardens, a lake, museums, fountains and the panoramic Pincio terrace overlooking the city.

27. Galleria Borghese

Coordinates
41.91417, 12.49222
In one line
A Baroque villa museum holding one of the world's finest art collections, assembled by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the early 17th century. It is celebrated above all for Bernini's marble sculptures and a remarkable group of Caravaggio paintings.

28. Piazza del Popolo

Coordinates
41.91083, 12.47639
In one line
A grand oval square at the historic northern entrance to Rome, given its neoclassical form by Giuseppe Valadier between 1811 and 1822. An ancient Egyptian obelisk rises at its centre, framed by twin Baroque churches and the terraces of the Pincio above.

29. Ara Pacis

Coordinates
41.90583, 12.47528
In one line
A marble altar consecrated in 9 BC to celebrate the peace Augustus brought to Rome. Its carved processions and lush friezes, reassembled in the 1930s, now stand inside a modern glass pavilion beside the Tiber.

30. Jewish Ghetto

Local name
Ghetto ebraico di Roma
Coordinates
41.8925, 12.47778
In one line
A small riverside quarter where Pope Paul the Fourth confined Rome's Jews behind walls from 1555 until 1870. Home to one of Europe's oldest Jewish communities, it remains a living district of synagogues, kosher bakeries, and a distinctive Roman-Jewish cuisine.

31. Great Synagogue of Rome

Local name
Tempio Maggiore di Roma
Coordinates
41.89194, 12.47806
In one line
Rome's main synagogue, built between 1901 and 1904 on the riverside where the Jewish ghetto once stood. Crowned by the only square dome in the city, it celebrates the community's freedom after emancipation and houses the Jewish Museum of Rome.

32. Appian Way

Local name
Via Appia
Coordinates
41.85555, 12.51676
In one line
Rome's most famous ancient road, begun in 312 BCE by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus and eventually reaching Brindisi. Called the queen of roads, it ran lined with grand tombs and mausolea and survives today as a regional park, walkable on its original basalt stones.

33. Catacombs of San Callisto

Local name
Catacombe di San Callisto
Coordinates
41.858901, 12.510753
In one line
A vast early Christian cemetery beneath the Appian Way, with around 20 kilometers of galleries on multiple levels. Named for the deacon who later became Pope Callixtus the First, it holds the Crypt of the Popes and the tomb of Saint Cecilia.

34. Pyramid of Cestius

Local name
Piramide Cestia
Coordinates
41.87639, 12.48111
In one line
A steep marble-clad pyramid built around 18 to 12 BCE as the tomb of the magistrate Gaius Cestius. A trace of Rome's fascination with Egypt, it survives almost intact because it was later built into the Aurelian Walls beside Porta San Paolo.

35. Trajan's Column

Local name
Colonna Traiana
Coordinates
41.89583, 12.48444
In one line
A marble column dedicated in 113 to celebrate the emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia. A continuous spiral relief winds up its shaft telling the story of the wars in stone, while a statue of Saint Peter, set in place in 1587, now crowns the summit.

36. Trajan's Market

Local name
Mercati di Traiano
Coordinates
41.89583, 12.48667
In one line
A multi-level complex of brick halls, vaulted shops, and offices carved into the Quirinal slope, built around 100 to 110 under Trajan. Often called an early shopping centre, it now houses the Museum of the Imperial Fora.

37. Imperial Fora

Local name
Fori Imperiali
Coordinates
41.89417, 12.48694
In one line
A sequence of grand public squares built by Roman emperors between 46 BCE and 113, from Julius Caesar to Trajan. Crossed today by Via dei Fori Imperiali, they extended the old Roman Forum with temples, basilicas, and colonnaded plazas.

38. Arch of Constantine

Local name
Arco di Costantino
Coordinates
41.88972, 12.49056
In one line
Rome's largest surviving triumphal arch, dedicated in 315 to mark Constantine's victory at the Milvian Bridge. Standing between the Colosseum and the Palatine, it famously reuses sculptures from earlier monuments alongside new fourth-century reliefs.

39. Domus Aurea

Coordinates
41.89139, 12.49528
In one line
Emperor Nero's vast Golden House, built after the Great Fire of 64 across the hills of central Rome. Largely buried by later emperors, its frescoed rooms were rediscovered in the Renaissance, inspiring the decorative style known as grotesque.

40. Ponte Sant'Angelo

Coordinates
41.90139, 12.46639
In one line
A pedestrian bridge across the Tiber, built by Emperor Hadrian and completed in 134 to reach his mausoleum. Lined with ten Baroque angels designed by Bernini, each holding an instrument of the Passion, it leads toward Castel Sant'Angelo.

41. Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls

Local name
Basilica di San Paolo fuori le mura
Coordinates
41.85861, 12.47694
In one line
One of Rome's four major papal basilicas, raised over the tomb of the Apostle Paul outside the ancient walls. Founded under Constantine, burned in 1823, and rebuilt to its early Christian plan, it is famed for portraits of every pope above the nave.

42. Testaccio Market

Local name
Mercato di Testaccio
Coordinates
41.877602, 12.47358
In one line
A working food market in Rome's old slaughterhouse district, rehoused in 2012 in a modern hall built over Roman ruins. Around a hundred stalls sell produce, meat, and famous street-food panini in a neighbourhood proud of its earthy cooking.

43. Testaccio

Coordinates
41.87611, 12.475
In one line
A working-class Roman quarter built on an ancient river port and a hill of broken oil jars. Famous for its covered food market, bold offal cooking and the nightclubs carved into the mound.

44. Monti

Coordinates
41.89556, 12.49278
In one line
Rome's first rione, named for the hills it covers and once home to the ancient Suburra slum. A onetime artisan quarter of narrow lanes and proud locals, it is now a bohemian tangle of vintage shops, wine bars and lived-in charm.

45. Pigneto

Coordinates
41.888478, 12.528181
In one line
A onetime railway-workers' quarter east of the centre, famous as the backdrop for Italian neorealist cinema. Pasolini filmed Accattone in its low streets, and today its pedestrian market road draws artists, students and a multicultural nightlife crowd.

46. Garbatella

Coordinates
41.86055, 12.48815
In one line
A garden-city quarter founded in 1920, built as public housing around communal courtyards and gardens. Its low pastel blocks and ornate suburban hostels in the Roman barocchetto style anchor a proudly left-wing, village-like neighbourhood south of the centre.

47. Quartiere Coppedè

Coordinates
41.91861, 12.50135
In one line
A small fantastical enclave of buildings designed by Gino Coppedè between 1915 and 1927, blending Art Nouveau, medieval, baroque and classical motifs. Around Piazza Mincio rise spider palaces, fairy cottages and a frog fountain, unlike anywhere else in Rome.

48. San Lorenzo

Coordinates
41.89694, 12.515
In one line
A working-class quarter beside Termini and the Sapienza university, built in the 1880s for railway and building workers. Heavily bombed in 1943, fiercely anti-fascist by tradition, it is now a gritty student and nightlife district full of bars and street art.

49. EUR

Coordinates
41.83194, 12.46861
In one line
A monumental district planned under Mussolini for a 1942 World's Fair that the war cancelled. Its rationalist marble architecture, crowned by the Square Colosseum, was finished after the war and is now a business quarter unlike anywhere else in Rome.

50. Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana

Coordinates
41.836705, 12.465124
In one line
A travertine cube of identical arched rows, designed in 1938 for a world's fair that war cancelled. Romans call it the Square Colosseum. Built as a Fascist showpiece in the EUR district, it now houses the Fendi fashion house.

51. Centrale Montemartini

Coordinates
41.86678, 12.47867
In one line
A branch of the Capitoline Museums set inside Rome's first public power station, in the Ostiense district. Hundreds of ancient marble gods and emperors stand among the preserved diesel engines and turbines, an unrepeated meeting of antiquity and industry.

52. Aventine Keyhole

Local name
Buco della serratura dell'Aventino
Coordinates
41.882927, 12.47841
In one line
A green door on the Aventine Hill whose keyhole frames a perfect view of Saint Peter's dome down an avenue of clipped hedges. It belongs to the Knights of Malta, whose priory square was designed by the engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

53. Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci)

Local name
Giardino degli Aranci
Coordinates
41.884926, 12.480451
In one line
A small public park on the Aventine Hill, laid out in 1932 within the walls of a medieval Savelli fortress. Rows of bitter orange trees lead to a terrace that opens onto a sweeping view across Rome and the Tiber.

54. Aventine Hill

Local name
Aventino
Coordinates
41.88333, 12.47917
In one line
The southernmost of Rome's seven hills, in antiquity the home of the plebeians and their temples. Today it is a tranquil, leafy residential quarter of early churches, gardens and panoramic terraces, set apart from the tourist crush below.

55. Janiculum Terrace

Local name
Belvedere del Gianicolo
Coordinates
41.89167, 12.46167
In one line
It centres on an 1895 equestrian monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi and marks where he defended the Roman Republic in 1849. A cannon fires here every day at noon.

56. MAXXI Museum

Local name
MAXXI
Coordinates
41.92889, 12.46667
In one line
Italy's national museum of twenty-first-century art and architecture, in the Flaminio district. Designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in 2010 on a former barracks site, its flowing concrete galleries won the Stirling Prize the same year.

57. Ponte Milvio

Coordinates
41.93556, 12.46694
In one line
An ancient stone bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome, rebuilt in 109 BC and famed as the site of Constantine's victory in 312. Now pedestrian-only, it draws evening crowds to the bars and squares of its riverside quarter.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 133 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Every place in all 133 cities has its audio story, a short introduction and a longer story, in all seven languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Albanian.

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