Before you reach the imposing façade of Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, you’re walking along Via Merulana. This street links the basilica with Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano and was laid out in the late 16th century under popes Gregory XIII and Sixtus V. Its name comes from the Merula family, which once held the land here in medieval times. At the corner with Via Carlo Alberto, you’ll find the quieter and much older Basilica di Santa Prassede — originally founded in the 5th century, rebuilt by Paschal I around 817-822 to house relics of Saint Praxedes and Saint Pudentiana. Inside Santa Prassede, you’ll see 9th-century mosaics, notably in the Chapel of St Zeno, that show how early Christian Rome blended art and faith. Walking here feels like moving from the civic face of Rome toward a more hidden religious mesh — streets, basilicas, names all layered with meaning and history, not just monuments but the living city.
Rome rises on seven hills, and this walk takes us across two of its most revealing ones — Esquiline and Palatine. The Esquiline, once the city’s eastern edge, still carries traces of imperial gardens, hidden nymphaea, magical gates, and traditions that survived the fall of the empire. The Palatine, the hill of the emperors, preserves stadiums, palaces, terraces and views where the entire history of Rome — Republic, Empire, Middle Ages, Baroque and modern Italy — lies in a single panorama. Along the way, we meet the monuments, streets and layers we uncovered in this journey: the baths of Trajan, the Domus Aurea beneath the grass, the Palatine stadium, the Forum’s arches and temples, and the buildings that reshaped Rome across two millennia. And we pause for something timeless: a pastry shop on the Esquiline that has kept its flavours unchanged for more than a century — a taste of Rome as constant as its stones.
