# Roots Earth in Rome: audio stories about 57 places Canonical: https://rootsearth.com/cities/rome Published: 16 September 2026 Roots Earth has audio stories about 57 places in Rome, Italy, in Europe. The Rome stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: 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. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026. ## The 57 places in Rome with audio stories In the order the app shows them. 1. Colosseum 2. Roman Forum 3. Palatine Hill 4. Pantheon 5. Trevi Fountain 6. Spanish Steps 7. Piazza Navona 8. St. Peter's Basilica 9. St. Peter's Square 10. Vatican Museums 11. Sistine Chapel 12. Castel Sant'Angelo 13. Capitoline Hill (Piazza del Campidoglio) 14. Capitoline Museums 15. Piazza Venezia 16. Altare della Patria (Vittoriano) 17. Trastevere 18. Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere 19. Campo de' Fiori 20. Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore 21. Archbasilica of St. John Lateran 22. Basilica of San Clemente 23. Baths of Caracalla 24. Circus Maximus 25. Mouth of Truth 26. Villa Borghese Gardens 27. Galleria Borghese 28. Piazza del Popolo 29. Ara Pacis 30. Jewish Ghetto 31. Great Synagogue of Rome 32. Appian Way 33. Catacombs of San Callisto 34. Pyramid of Cestius 35. Trajan's Column 36. Trajan's Market 37. Imperial Fora 38. Arch of Constantine 39. Domus Aurea 40. Ponte Sant'Angelo 41. Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls 42. Testaccio Market 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 53. Orange Garden (Giardino degli Aranci) 54. Aventine Hill 55. Janiculum Terrace 56. MAXXI Museum 57. Ponte Milvio ## Is there an audio guide for Colosseum? Yes. Colosseum has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. It is place 1 of the 57 Rome places in the app, at 41.89021, 12.49223. Every one of the other 56 places in the list above has the same two stories. Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself. ## 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 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print. ### 1. Colosseum - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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) - 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 - 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) - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Coordinates: 41.85556, 12.51444 - 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 - Coordinates: 41.85694, 12.51028 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Coordinates: 41.87472, 12.47556 - 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: 41.88861, 12.53167 - 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: 41.83389, 12.46444 - 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 - Coordinates: 41.88389, 12.47833 - 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) - Coordinates: 41.88444, 12.47917 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people. - No account - Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection - Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app). ## More from Roots Earth - [Europe in the Roots Earth catalogue](https://rootsearth.com/cities#europe): every city in Europe with its number of places and its languages. - [What Roots Earth is](https://rootsearth.com/app): the app in one page, how it works and what is in it. - [Questions travellers ask](https://rootsearth.com/faq): the cities, the languages, the account, listening without a connection. - [The 7 languages](https://rootsearth.com/languages): the seven languages with their codes and how many cities each one covers. - [Florence](https://rootsearth.com/cities/florence): 48 places in Italy with audio stories. - [Venice](https://rootsearth.com/cities/venice): 48 places in Italy with audio stories. - [Milano](https://rootsearth.com/cities/milano): 88 places in Italy with audio stories. - [Verona](https://rootsearth.com/cities/verona): 40 places in Italy with audio stories. 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