Rome’s Christian Sites Semi-Private Tour
Description
Discover Rome and explore the sites that have made this city the center of Christianity. You can relive this ancient history walking through the Impressive Papal Basilicas, places where history, faith and art blend together through the lives of popes, saints and artists. You can visit the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, with its beautiful medieval cloister, then move on to the first Basilica in Rome, St. John Lateran, the place of the greements between the political power and the power of the Church. You will continue your journey in Catholicism at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the most important of the Roman churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with a lot ofmosaics and decorations. You will conclude the tuor admiring the elegance and the artistic and architectural majesty of St. Peter's Basilica and the masterpieces of Bernini and Michelangelo.
Tour Options
Itinerary
The Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Italian: Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura), commonly known as St. Paul's Outside the Walls, is one of Rome's four ancient, papal, major basilicas,[a] along with the basilicas of St. John in the Lateran, St. Peter's, and St. Mary Major. The basilica is within Italian territory and not the territory of the Vatican City State, but the Holy See owns the Basilica, and Italy is legally obligated to recognize its full ownership and to concede to it "the immunity granted by International Law to the headquarters of the diplomatic agents of foreign States"
The Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran, (Italian: Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano) – also known as the Papal Archbasilica of St. John [in] Lateran, St. John Lateran, or the Lateran Basilica – is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome in the city of Rome, Italy and therefore houses the cathedra, or ecclesiastical seat, of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.
The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is a Papal major basilica and the largest Catholic Marian church in Rome, Italy, from which size it receives the appellation "major". The basilica enshrines the venerated image of Salus Populi Romani, depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary as the help and protectress of the Roman people, which was granted a Canonical coronation by Pope Gregory XVI on 15 August 1838 accompanied by his Papal bull Cælestis Regina.
The Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican (Italian: Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply St. Peter's Basilica (Latin: Basilica Sancti Petri), is an Italian Renaissance church in Vatican City, the papal enclave within the city of Rome. Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter's is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and the largest church in the world. While it is neither the mother church of the Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, St. Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world"and as "the greatest of all churches of Christendom".
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
Pickup is included for all accommodation within Aurelian Walls. If your hotel is not in the list send us an email with your hotel /B&B/accomodation in Rome, we will let you know if the pick up is included.
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- It is recommended to wear comfortable shoes
- A dress code is required to enter places of worship and selected museums. No shorts or sleeveless tops allowed. Knees and shoulders MUST be covered for both men and women. You may risk refused entry if you fail to comply with these dress requirement
Reviews(12)
Private tour for 2 adults with very warm and friendly driver Marianna and very interesting and knowledgeable guide Anna. Excellent historical information and tour . Unfortunately St Peter’s was too crowded with long lines even at 5 pm to see with our guide.
Thank you for your review, we will be sure to tell Marianna and Anna! We are sorry about the long lines at St Peter, unfortunately due to this year's Jubilee and the fact that it was the day before a religious holiday, lines could be very long at all times of the day. We are happy that you still enjoyed the tour!
Excellent review of Christian sites in Rome. Very helpful review of the 2nd tier sites for those who have seen the 1st tier.
Thank you for your nice review!
The tour is advertised as small group, but in fact it is private and it was just my husband and I along with our guide and Driver. The tour also doesn’t advertise well as far as pick up options. Per the guide & driver we could’ve been picked up closer to where we were staying, but given it was advertised as a small group and only four pick up locations provided when booking we wasted our time and money getting a cab to one of those locations to start the tour. Also, the tour advertises that you will visit the four major basilicas in Rome, but that is impossible to do, given the time and distance between them & lines at St Peter’s. Fortunately, we had already visited Saint Peter’s Badilica, so opted with our guide to just go to the other three. Our guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and we enjoyed the information provided, but as someone else stated it was not as much Catholic reference and information as had expected & had received in other tours. Given that it was actually a private tour and not a group, we did enjoy the flexibility and kindness of both the guide and driver to create a route that made the most sense to visit the three basilicas, which were all amazing and beautiful, and so moving to see.
Thank you for your review
I think for us we expected this to be a Christian tour as the title says, however our guide was non religious and it seemed like we learnt more about the art work or artists, than about how the church’s relate to Christianity. I would have appreciated the tour to be a little more in depth, it felt like we were in and out. Our driver was amazing, the tour guide was also amazing, only thing is we wanted more knowledge on the Christianity side of things, which is why we booked a Christian tour.
Hello dear customer, we are sorry to read about this review as we clearly state in the product description that this tour is a journey through the art of Christianity and not a tour focused on theology. We are also really sad to read that our tour guide seems to have been discriminated by you because in your opinion she was not devoted enough.
Very quick tours in and out of the cathedrals, but very knowledgeable guide and great driver! Great way to see all the important Catholic basilicas.
Our Tour Guide was excellent. She was very knowledgeable. There were only four of us on the tour and we are family members. I appreciate Viator accommodating us when I requested a shorter tour due to time constraints as to when we had to meet our Trafalgar Tour at the hotel. The three basilicas we saw were very beautiful and impressive. (We had to omit one basilicas the reason above and we were going to see St. Peter's the next day anyway.) Our driver was also excellent and very friendly. I highly recommend this tour
Thank you very much for your review! We're happy to hear that you enjoyed the tour and the breathtaking art of the basilicas. Hope you get to see even more in a future visit to Rome!
We had booked the semi-private tour but it happened that we were the only two on the tour. They picked us up on time and Debra did a wonderful job explaining the Churches that we saw while Alexander drove us safely around Rome. Since we were the only ones on the tour we were able to adapt it a bit to something we really wanted to see. I would recommend this company.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Debora is very nice and knowledgeable guide. If it is possible, we always try to accommodate our customer's requests!
Started with confusion on hotel pick up - we were waiting at front of hotel, don’t know where the guide was waiting. The guide (female, already forgot her name) seemed unorganized and did not fully plan ahead. We were grateful that we were the only ones to sign up for this tour as we had the tour to ourselves. The driver seemed nice, and did his job of dropping us off and picking us up from each location. However, both the driver and guide seemed to disagree/argue in Italian frequently during our tours which was not very professional. Overall the guide seemed to pick the churches that did not have a fee (and therefore did not need to have a schedule or much of a plan). She also seemed to lack in Catholic and historic information, but was ok with knowledge of some architecture. We tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and be polite. First stop we visited St. Peter square only. Our guide said the lines were too long and our whole trip would be wasted waiting to get in (so why didn't she purchase advance tickets for us??). Visited Saint Paul outside the walls - beautiful church with lots of history but the guide basically let us go on our own. A quick tour of St. Basilica of St. John in the Lateran. When we arrived at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore we were too late to see it since it closed at 7 & we arrived 6:40 (the guards wouldn’t allow in since they closed in 20 minutes). Maybe not entirely our guides fault but the timing should have been planned better. We did get to go across the street to St. Lawrence to see the Holy Stairs, but again we went inside without the guide. The guide wanted to find another church to tour (to make up for the ones we couldn’t see?) but by that time we were tired and just wanted to return to our hotel. Perhaps with a different guide or a more definitive plan, the tour would have been satisfactory.
Thank you for your review. We are sorry that you did not enjoy the tour. Rome has vast Christian history and our guides are always well organized and prepared to show you as many things as possible in a 4 hours tour.
Wordless for the quantity and quality of works in the famous Basilica, very good maintenance and care of the works
Muchas gracias para su comentario!
Many thanks to our guide Lorène who allowed us to appreciate and understand this majestic place with a smile, simplicity and humor despite the world. Must do with a group or individual guide for rich commentary and faster access to the Basilica and Sistine Chapel. A big thank you
Merci pour la bonne note! Nous sommes si heureux que vous ayez aimé la tour et les guides touristiques. Nous espérons vous revoir bientôt! Sincères amitiés
