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A friend of mine recently returned from Italy, filled with stories of his time in a Rome hotel and the tours he took of that ancient city.  Like many cities about two thousand eight hundred years old, Rome has a number of stories to tell — the rise and fall of an Empire, the establishment of a new world religion, centuries of life unfolding on the same piece of ground.  My friend recommended the tours, specifically ones to St. Peters Cathedral and the Vatican Museum, the Roman Colisseum, and Palatine Hill.

The tours, he said, were the way to experience ancient Rome, through a knowledgeable tour guide, who can point out things you might well miss out on alone.  The tour he took to the Vatican lasted nearly six hours, and the guide was an art history PhD candidate who passionately explained the works, giving the art a cultural context for the times in which it was made.  The candidate discussed how Michelangelo was influenced by the Greeks and Romans for the Sistine Chapel.  This guide let my friend go ahead to the Sistine Chapel, because he had to get back to his cruise ship.

My friend also saw the Roman Colisseum, with the guide augmenting his imaginations about what life was like there in the busy Forum and at the crowded Games.  On his own, my friend insisted, he wouldn’t have “seen” half the details that were pointed out to him; one example he gave was of a tour guide who pointed out how to know which ancient marble cornices are used inside modern houses or for a garage frame, and so on.  Guides, too, gave him extra information about Palatine Hill, where, according to myth, the cave exists where Romulus and Remus were discovered by the she-wolf that kept them alive, long enough for them to found Rome itself.  In fact, the hill is the centerpoint of Rome’s Seven Hills, and is the point where Rome was founded so long ago.  The point, I suppose, my friend was trying to make was that if you go to the trouble of traveling several thousands of miles, it’s a good idea not only to study up on that region, but to hire someone from that region to enhance that experience.  I couldn’t disagree.