Private tours from
Prati and the Vatican.

Prati is the easiest area in central Rome to be collected from. It is a nineteenth-century grid of wide streets with no historic-centre restrictions, so the cart stops at practically any hotel door. The river is four minutes away, and the Gianicolo, which is the best view in the city, is about fifteen minutes from your entrance.

Crossing the river early

You are on the outside of the bend in the Tiber, north-west of everything. The route crosses over almost immediately and works south along the west bank before coming back through the old centre.

That is the opposite direction from most tours. You meet the crowds on their way out instead of on their way in.

Minutes 0–8. Down Cola di Rienzo or Piazza Cavour to Castel Sant'Angelo, then a photo stop on Ponte Sant'Angelo. Bernini's angels along both parapets, the dome of St Peter's framed at the end of the bridge. Early or late, it is one of the two or three best photographs in Rome.

Minutes 8–20. South along the Lungotevere on the Vatican side, past the Palazzo di Giustizia, then up via della Lungara towards the hill.

Minutes 20–40. The Gianicolo. Up via Garibaldi to the Fontanone, the great fountain that turns up in a hundred films, and on to the terrace where the entire city lies below you in one frame. Everybody gets out. Ten minutes here is the best-spent quarter of the tour.

Minutes 40–65. Down into Trastevere from above, which is the direction nobody arrives from. Slow through the wider lanes, Santa Maria in Trastevere, out at Piazza Trilussa and along the water past Isola Tiberina.

Minutes 65–95. Across to the Jewish Quarter and the Theatre of Marcellus, a slow-and-tell stop that no coach can make because there is nowhere for one to stop. Then the Capitoline and Piazza Venezia.

Minutes 95–150. Into the centre for the Pantheon and Piazza Navona on foot, then back west over the river. If the light is going we hold the bridge for last. Castel Sant'Angelo lit, from the middle of Ponte Sant'Angelo, is how this route should end.

What we can't do from here

You are staying beside the two things we cannot take you into.

We do not sell tickets, do not enter St Peter's Basilica, and do not enter the Vatican Museums. What we show you is the outside: the colonnade, the dome from three different bridges, and the view back from the Gianicolo where the whole complex finally sits in its context.

If the Sistine Chapel is why you came, book a licensed guide with timed entry. The two things combine well and the order matters. Museums in the morning, cart in the afternoon, when your legs have finished and the light is improving.

How long things take from Prati

Best hour to leave. Afternoon, specifically after a museum morning. It is the commonest booking from this quarter and it works because the timing is natural: departures between two and three put you on the Gianicolo as the light turns and back at the bridge at dusk. Sunrise is the other good answer. St Peter's Square at seven, before the queue for the basilica has formed and while the colonnade is still throwing long shadows across the cobbles, is something most visitors never see.

Where we meet you

The simplest in Rome. Prati was laid out in the 1880s and 1890s on a grid with wide streets and no pedestrian core, so the cart stops at the entrance of essentially any hotel here: via Cola di Rienzo, via Crescenzio, Piazza Cavour, the streets around via Candia.

Closer to the Vatican walls, on the Borgo side, the streets narrow and there are event closures around the basilica on Wednesdays and on holy days. On those dates the driver moves the meeting point a street or two out and tells you the evening before.

Coming out of the museums at two with a family who have had enough is the single most common reason people book us from this side of the river: see what is free that afternoon.

Prices

Per cart, all in, about two and a half hours. Extra stop €19.50, child seat free. No tickets, no basilica, no museums.

For hotels in Prati and Borgo

We work with a small number of luxury hotels in central Rome, and we keep the circle deliberately small: the same driver standard every time, one number that answers, and a guest who comes back to your desk happy. The afternoon slot after a Vatican morning is the easiest recommendation a concierge on this side of the river can make, and it is the one guests come back to thank you for.

If you would like your property to be part of it, write to partnership@aurarometours.it, or see the partner page.

Coming out of the museums with tired legs is the commonest reason guests book from this side: the walking arithmetic of a Rome day. In July the afternoon slot needs planning of its own: sightseeing at 36°C.