Earlier this month, I made my foray into live online onsite tours with an hour long wander over the Palatine Hill and down to the Roman Forum courtesy of a webinar, my phone’s excellent camera, a gimbal to avoid jerkiness, and the help of my pal Martina on the Zoom controls. A special mention to my wonderful parents, Grant and Elizabeth, who acted as guinea pigs and helped us negotiate the logistics during a practice run. 

Despite a shower at the beginning (there was I juggling an umbrella & a gimbal whilst apparently talking to myself: it’s just as well I passed the age of self-consciousness some time ago) it was received enthusiastically and I’m very grateful to everyone who joined in.

I’m going to be doing it again, this time with a walk through the Field of Mars. The Field of Mars is a jumble of cobbled streets and ancient columns; of ecclesiastical outfitters and Baroque churches; of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. It is a dense fusion of the city’s history: monuments to emperors jostle with the crests of popes; seventeenth century fountains flow with water brought by an ancient aqueduct. Perhaps the best place in the city to talk about Rome’s eternal, ever-mutating nature 

It will be running on Thursday 5th November at 4pm Rome time. As the evenings lengthen any later isn’t feasible as atmospheric gloom doesn’t work online, so apologies to those of you on the West Coast where it’ll be 7am. However unlike my online talks this is a webinar so your camera won’t be on. You could be lounging somnolently in your nightie and no one would be any the wiser, and what better way to wake up than looking at Piazza Navona?

Any questions you may have can be asked via the chat function and will be relayed to me as we go along. The cost is €25 per computer connection, regardless of how many people are in front of the screen, and picture quality is good enough to watch on a big screen.

If you’d like to join me please send an email to book to info@understandingrome.com