Ancient Rome at Twilight: The Suburra and the Borgia Steps

The interesting half of this walk is the part that is not on the postcards. Monti today is boutiques and wine bars. In antiquity the same slope was the Suburra, the crowded, dangerous, cheap quarter where most of the city actually lived, five storeys of tenement above shops, prone to fire and collapse. Julius Caesar was born here, which was unusual for a patrician and something he made use of politically. The walk goes up the Salita dei Borgia, a dark staircase cut through a building, to the courtyard of the palace where a Borgia pope kept his mistress, and the guide tells what happened there. Before that, it starts at the Vittoriano in Piazza Venezia and climbs the Capitoline for the view down over the lit Forum, then crosses the road Mussolini drove through the ancient city. It ends at a spot the guide will take you to, where Romans go to look at the Colosseum at night, and then at the Colosseum itself. A small group, built for people seeing the city for the first time and wanting more than the standard list.