GHOSTS OF ROME

As daylight fades and shadows enshroud the ancient city in a veil of darkness, the ghosts of popes, saints, emperors and mysterious dames come out to haunt the streets and squares. Follow your guide on an evening ghost hunt through the Eternal City and let the grisly tales of phantoms, apparitions and wandering souls send shivers down your spine.

This tour is specially designed to provide young, intrepid visitors with an unforgettable experience: a highly entertaining and simultaneously informative overview of Rome’s history throughout the centuries. The trail will lead you down tenebrous alleyways, across moonlit bridges, past a haunted castle, all populated – as tradition has it – by spectral beings.

Your evening jaunt begins in Piazza del Popolo. Can you imagine that the Neoclassical square you see today was once a spooky forest of poplars? Here, just outside the northernmost extremity of Rome’s city walls, was an infamous graveyard, the burial place of prisoners and atheists who had been refused final rest in sacred ground. In the Middle Ages this area was known to be haunted by the ghost of Rome’s cruellest emperor: Nero. Accompanied by black crows his spectre used to float around a walnut tree, beneath which his remains were believed to have been interred.

Next, head for Castel Sant’Angelo and hear sinister stories of Rome’s most famous ghost, Beatrice Cenci. Charged with the murder of her brutal, despotic father, this young noble girl was sentenced to death in 1599 together with her family. Her phantom is said to appear every year on the night before her execution, between September 10th and 11th along the bridge that leads to the castle.

Proceed towards Piazza Navona and look into the window of Palazzo de Cupis… If the moon is full you might make out the reflection of Lady Costanza’s ghostly hand. According to legend, this unfortunate dame pricked her finger with a needle. The infection that followed rapidly spread to her arm and her hand had to be amputated.

As you look down on the site where the Theatre of Pompey once stood, conjure up the scene of Julius Caesar’s tragic death. Here he was stabbed by conspirators whom he mistook for allies in what is now considered history’s earliest and most famous political assassination.

Finally, reach Trastevere to meet the last ghost of this tour: greedy Olimpia Maidalchini. She will appear along the Sisto Bridge in a black carriage escaping with two coffers of gold coins.