Rome: Piazza Navona & Trevi District Underground Pass

We were disappointed in this trip. We rushed to get to the check in point and then had to queue for 20 minutes. We were then told by a rather rude customer service representative that the experience was in two halves, one close by and the other a 15/20 min walk away. We started at the museum with ancient remains of the underground arena, which was interesting and informative. However because of the time issues we felt rushed to get to the next point in time for our tour. Unfortunately it was raining very heavily and there were crowds of people that made the walk take longer. When we arrived at the second entrance point we were only allowed audio systems for the adults. My 9 year old granddaughter, who is very interested in Roman history was extremely disappointed that she wasn’t given an audio system. Sharing with an adult didn’t work very well so my daughter sacrificed her system for the benefit of her daughter. We felt misinformed as to the logistics of this event and felt we would have had a less stressful experience if we had just bought entry tickets on the door.

It was interesting. This was definitely a self-guided tour. The actual location was a bit hard to locate. It is nice that you can go at your own pace. Both tours were indoors so this was perfect for a rainy day. .

It was a treat to be able to go below ground level to see under the Piazza and the Trevi Fountain. To be able to see the original buildings and statues from the past was amazing.

This was not what we expected. The six of us thought it was not worth the time or money we spent on this “tour”.

The first underground tour I completed was under Piazza Navona. I thought it was quite interesting to see how the current piazza sits atop of the original stadium Domitian built. The audio tour was quite well done and posters/photos/artifacts were laid out following the history of the stadium. I thought the posters giving various facts about the Roman emperors were hilarious (like average life span of an emperor with usurpers was 5 years while without was 5.5 years or in the 49 years between 235 - 284 AD there were 27 emperors with 3 dying of natural causes and the remainder suffering a violent death, average lifespan as emperor less than 2 years). The posters showing the various sporting events were interesting to see how some of them have evolved in two thousand years. And some are still pretty much the same. Since I was so impressed with the stadium I had high hopes for the Trevi fountain considering the tour was a set time. I was disappointed. First of all, the audio tour was similar to a leapfrog toy (toy for toddlers to help them learn words). Mine worked maybe 40% of the time. The only difficulty was the layout, granted this isn't the fault of the city, however, none of the walkways connect so there are three places when you reach the end you have to turn around and walk past everyone still trying to get to the end. While I wouldn't do the Trevi fountain underground alone, as part of the package it was fine. I would recommend the stadium underground if only to see what Domitian did beyond expanding the coliseum.