Christian Rome Afternoon Tour

Rome, Italy

Tour Rome's sacred Christian sites on an afternoon guided tour. You'll visit the famous Basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore and Saint John in Lateran, and travel along the ancient Appian Way to see Rome's Catacombs.

Your three-hour afternoon guided tour of Christian Rome begins with the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline Hill, where your guide will show you some of the treasures inside. You'll then see the Holy Staircase and make an inside visit of the Basilica of St John in Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.

Next, you'll proceed along the ancient Appian Way, passing the Chapel of Domine Quo Vadis before arriving at the Catacombs, the ancient underground cemeteries and hiding places of the Christians. A visit will be made to either the Catacombs of San Callisto, Santa Domitilla or San Sebastiano, depending on seasonal conditions. The tour ends with a spectacular view of the Baths of Emperor Caracalla.

USD $58.73

Traveler Reviews

Review by: bsauro	March 2012
Great tour! Knowledgeable guide who incorporated the Christianity into what we were seeing.

Review by: Mary T	November 2011
Good tour, lots to see and do. The guide sadly was not very good which did not make the tour as good as it could have been.

Review by: John H	September 2011
We found it very interesting and the tour guide (I didn't get his name, I called him OO-OO) was also entertaining.

Review by: Joseph C	September 2011
a great way to see some important sites - one criticism is that the name of this tour should be more specific to what was visited

Review by: Joseph B	September 2011
The tour was interesting and very informative and meaningful. Guide was mediocre.Pick-up at the hotel was nice but complicated. Pick-up by one bus - transferred to another-then to the office and then on another bus then ending at the office and to another bus to the hotel. Way to complicated and time consuming.

Review by: Borshay	July 2011
Would have liked more time in Catacombs. Our group swelled to a size that no guide could work effectively.

Review by: William K	July 2011
I was concerned at first as the tour company was located in a side street close to the main railway station then the driver and guide seemed to be having a disagreement over the route to take. Eventually all worked out well with the visit to the catacombs and then the Basilica of St John and the church of St Mary Major. The Sacred Stairs was an awesome experience. My one real gripe was that we couldn't visit one area due to a service taking place. The tour people should know the timings of services at the churches that they are visiting and the route should be synchronized with these timings so as to avoid them. Good value tour, though and I would recommend, however I would also like to point out that the hotel pickup arrangement is a bit confusing and needs to be arranged better.

Review by: JOHNNY V	June 2011
Good tour. The Catacombs were very interesting.

Review by: Janet M	May 2011
Great guide, very convenient way to see the catacombs and two other churches.

Review by: Pamela J	May 2011
Excellent tour with excellent guide!

Review by: Talei V	May 2011
Our tour guide, Vanessa, was absolutely spectacular in her knowledge, and friendliness! I always wanted to see the Catacombs, and this tour provided me that opportunity, as well as viewing other beautiful churches. Would recommend this. Thank you!

Review by: NICOLE P	May 2011
Because we were only a few people on that tour we had to share a bus with another group. Our guide was very pleasant and the guide in the catacombs was awesome.

Review by: EDWARD W	April 2011
Recommend this tour -- guide was very nice and very informative and was happy to answer all questions.

Review by: EJM	April 2011
Out of all of the tours I have ever done this one was the worst. It started with our arrival at the tour operator's office with a very unpleasant greeting and then went downhill from there. The guide we had mumbled the three languages he was attempting do we had no idea which he was speaking. At one point we were ambushed by street sellers and he advised if we purchased a book we could save! So not impressed. Would not recommend!

Review by: Maria M	March 2011
Don't waste your money on this tour. I think you are better off signing up on open bus tour that includes the acheous bus and takes you the catacombs. Everything was rushed and the 3 languages spoken at the same tour lost my attention in the first 3 minutes. I travel alot and I try different tours...this one I don't recommend.

Review by: Teresa H	November 2010
very impressive, the catacumbs are quite impressive, and very much worth seeing

Review by: Margie P	October 2010
This one was disappointing - first of all, we had to change buses 3 times before we actually got started, they were late to pick us up at our hotel, and the tour started 45 minutes late. The headsets cut in and out, and you share one tour guide who speaks several languages. The tour guide seemed uninterested, and when we reached the catacombs they said we were too late for the one we scheduled, and we had to reload the bus and go to a different one. Very disorganized tour. This one could be good with some significant improvements in their organization.

Review by: Ronetta M. R	October 2010
Poorly organized and disappointing presentation.

Review by: James B	October 2010
Tour organisation, service and hotel pickup excellent. Itinerary great and local guide knowledgeable and pleasant. Would recommend tour and Viator highly.

Review by: Young J	October 2010
i wish this tour covers more churches in ROME .

Review by: John C	October 2010
tour guide was very good, knowledgeable and friendly. Interesting tour.

Review by: Ronald P	September 2010
Good tour with a good tour guide. She knows her stuff.

Review by: James G	August 2010
We really enjoyed being able to go into the catacombs. Our guide was excellent. We were picked up in front of our hotel, just like we arranged. Thank you!

Review by: Anonymous	July 2010
Excellent tour guide.

Review by: Anonymous	July 2010
The tour was informative, the guides supurb and the transportation prompt.

Review by: Earl C	July 2010
Our assigned tour guide, thin with long brown hair, was often short if not curt in her response to guest questions, very shallow in her discussions of what we were seeing, and generally unorganized and distracting with respect to addressing the multi-lingual members of the group.

Review by: Anonymous	July 2010
We were at the bus by 230 as scheduled. As it turns out the tour starts at 3 but the AC in ths bus was not turned on. When it is 90 degrees this is not acceptable. The catacombs was great but at the St. John Lateran & St. Mary Major - masses were going so we could not go near the altar. As a Catholic, I respec the sanctity of the mass, so the tour should have been scheduled in the morning before the masses. These 2 churches were important to us, Unfortuntely, we were not able to enjoy our visit. I would suggest that for those wanting to do this tour - DO NOT do it on Saturday afternoon. Finally, there were about 20-25 with just ONE tour guide. Too many and two many language English, Spanish, French.

Review by: Stuart A	July 2010
I was a little disappointed with the Catacombs especially since we were not allowed to take photos. I thought our guide was a bit arrogant.

Review by: Dennis S, United States of America	June 2010
Worthwhile!

Review by: GERALD L B, United States of America	June 2010
Very interesting tour, especially the part involving the catacombs and the sacred staircase.

Review by: Michael L	June 2010
An OK tour, the catacombs are an interesting place.

Review by: Richard O	June 2010
Time at each church was about 15 minutes. Guide was very superficial in her knowledge of the details of each place. She was quite charming, however. We did the tour for the Domatian Catacombs which were very good.

Review by: Anonymous	May 2010
The tour guide wasn't very enthusiastic and the catacombs were disappointing.

Review by: Joseph R	May 2010
Not enough time allowed in churches to do more than just walk through very quickly. More time spent riding around Rome.

Review by: Anonymous, United States of America	February 2010
The sites for this tour were significant ones as part of our visit to Rome.

Review by: Amy M	December 2009
Could have been a lot better. If you can get your own way out to the catacombs I would suggest just doing that own your own and not wasting time trying to get there with this tour. It takes up too much time and it's not the best.

Review by: Anonymous	November 2009
Combined languages even though we signed up for an English speaking tour. Other alnguages spoken by the tour guide were not optimal, they were distracting. Catacombs were interesting and were the highlight of this tour.

Review by: Gladys R, United States of America	October 2009
Excellent.

Review by: Charles H, US Minor Outlying Islands	October 2009
We loved the Catacombs. As a Christian person it was very moving.

Review by: Laura B	October 2009
I thought this tour was marginal. Our tour guide has to give the tour in three languages so we were rushed at each venue because she had to say the same thing in each language. In addition, I didn't think her knowledge was very extensive.

Review by: Anonymous	October 2009
On the positive side, the Catacombs were very interesting and worthwhile, with a knowledgeable guide. On the down side, the entire rest of the tour was very rushed, with limited commentary by the coach guide. We were on our way back to our hotels in less than 2 and a half hours!

Review by: Julie P	August 2009
I wish I had read the other reviews better before my trip as it has been an ongoing issue, but they sort them high to low. My tour guide barely spoke English and over half my group only spoke Spanish. So our tour guide spoke back and forth in Spanish and some English. I went on 7 tours on my trip and this was by far the worst. I could barely understand the guide and his level of knowledge was minimal.

Review by: Trina K, United States of America	April 2009
This was well worth it, however, it was a bit shorter than the other tours. It would have been nice to have more time at St. John Lateran. We finished completely in 2 and a half hours. Also, it wasn't clear to some that the tour concluded at St. Maria Maggiore Church instead of our beginning point.

Review by: Laura H, United States of America	May 2008
This is a great tour, the time was very well planned out. I never would have figured out how to see the catacombs without this tour.

Review by: Richard P, United Kingdom	April 2008
I really hope this tour can continue to run; there were only 7 in our group. It provided a great introduction to the catacombs and to church history, and we got to see some really interesting sights.

Review by: Andrew M, United States of America	January 2008
An extraordinary tour. Professional, passionate tour guides. Tour is misnamed. Catacombs, along the Appian way, are spectacular. The most important church, San Giovanni Laterano was a key stop and is not in the name. It is a must see. Their was a slight mix-up coordinating the buses, but that seemed like part of the fun of a trip to Rome.

Review by: Peggy V, United States of America	December 2007
Best way to get to the Catacombs. Tour guide was the best. This was a most enjoyable afternoon.

Review by: Richard L, Australia	October 2007
Unbelievable, a really great tour.

Review by: Tara B, Canada	October 2007
The catacombs were great, but the tour operator should give longer tours of them. We enjoyed this very much.

Review by: Jeffrey B, United States of America	July 2007
Overall the trip was great. The visit to the catacombs is fairly brief, about thirty or forty minutes, but very interesting. The two basilicas are very impressive as well. I would do this again.