"ROME (from home) TOURS"

Jewish and Italian History are merged as the infamous Ghetto of Rome is 'liberated' upon the ascension to the throne of King Victor Emmanuel II, in 1870. Rome leaves behind its thousand year rule by the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish Community of Rome is freed from more than 300 years of house arrest. This 7-acre patch of dense urban fabric in the heart of Rome has come to symbolize Jewish solidarity as well as the successful assimilation of a pre-diaspora migration of Jews from the Holy Land to join the patchwork of ancient Roman society.

As Italian Unification is completed and Rome is restored as the Capital City, a brand new boulevard of shops, institutions and monuments is carved through centuries-old farmland to connect the Roman Forum with newly defined urban boundaries. A rift forms between those who would conserve the ancient stones and the planners and developers who envision modern transport and industry, international trade and tourism, and a population explosion. The Royal Family makes its mark on the Eternal City, as a new European Capital is born.

Gino Coppedè, often compared to Frank Lloyd Wright and Antoni Gaudí as a modern design visionary , joined with a private real estate developer from Genoa to create the first 'gated community' in Rome. Designed with a rapidly expanding managerial class of new residents in mind, The Coppedè District is Italy's finest example of Art Nouveau esthetics, and an eccentric one-time furniture designer's fantasy of bespoke urban living. Whimsy, eclecticism and a deep love of artisanal craft make this cluster of more than 30 buildings a longstanding favorite of designers and home to Romans of a certain class.

Cross the Tiber (tras-tevere) to the winding streets of one of Rome's oldest and most charming neighborhoods, a haven, since the 1st Century, for the diverse population of immigrants and outsiders who sustained the Imperial Capital's river ports and shipyards. Our walk begins at the paleo-Christian Basilica of S. Maria in Trastevere, and winds uphill to Bramante's Tempietto, and the Acqua Paola, a spectacular baroque fountain that presides over one of Rome’s legendary vistas, celebrating the reconstruction of Trajan's Aqueduct. We stroll past the city's earliest known synagogue and check out the ancient river port which now hosts Rome's huge Sunday Flea Market.

Garbatella, the unique and charming Garden City worker-housing district of the 1920’s, just beyond the ancient city walls, feels like a small village in the heart of the city. Its design is meant to evoke the rustic hill towns from which much of Rome's industrial workforce was migrating. This massive public housing complex and hip commercial enclave has become one of the most sought-after (and gentrified) contemporary neighborhoods. While in the area we'll also stop in at St. Pauls outside the Walls, the second largest church in Rome, and Rome's mega-food-Emporium EATALY, housed in a former train station.

At the foot of the massive 18 B.C.E. sarcophagus the Pyramid of Cestius, we cross the threshold of the 271 B.C.E. Aurelian Wall, drop in at the 300-year old Non-Catholic Cemetery (burial place of Keats and Shelley) and tour an ‘enlightened’ worker housing district of the early 20th century. We will take in the Testaccio covered market (a Rome foodie destination in itself), the former stockyards and slaughterhouses - now converted to fair-trade shops and exhibition halls - and sail over Monte Testaccio, a massive landform composed entirely of pottery shards from the ancient Tiber shipping port, known as the Emporio. Viewed by many as the Heart of Rome, for its authentic working class pride, its great pastry shops, pizzerias and small-town intimacy, Testaccio is an un-missable visitor favorite.

Mussolini's triumphal, bombastic and classically-inspired fairgrounds for the doomed 1942 World's Fair: this is Rome envisioned as a Fascist Utopia. At once embracing modernity and clinging to the glories of the ancient past, this anomaly of town planning in Rome has gracefully transformed into a post-War business district and leafy residential quarter, showcasing some of Italy’s greatest modern architectural achievements as well as its most arrogant urban follies.

Mario Fiorentino's infamous kilometer-long housing project, known as Il Serpentone (the great snake), contains a small city's worth of apartments, commercial and public spaces within a single structure. This behemoth on Rome's periphery seems to embody the desire to support a struggling working class economically and socially as Italy staggers forward in the wake of fascism, as well as the final chapter of Building-as-Social-Engineering in Italy. Can its many failures be blamed on architecture alone? We look inside, outside and over this monumental work that has been compared with the Great Wall, the Roman Aqueducts and the landscape itself.

Italian post-World War II optimism and Rome’s cutting edge contemporary art and design scene converge in this historic neighborhood, containing masterpieces by Pier Luigi Nervi; the Corbusian Olympic Village (where boxing sensation Cassius Clay and Decathlon hero Rafer Johnson set the sporting world on fire in 1960), across the Tiber from the fascist-era sporting complex Foro Italico (formerly Foro Mussolini). Hyper-contemporary structures including Renzo Piano's Auditorium Parco della Musica and Zaha Hadid's MAXXI museum mark this district as an emerging Cultural Axis beyond the Historic Center.