The Fori Imperiali: the promenade to the Colosseum
The straight road over the buried fora, Trajan's Market, and the Colosseum at the end of it. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Trajan's Column
Start beside the column, its spiral frieze recording the Dacian wars metre by metre. Look up and follow the band of carving as it winds; it was meant to be read from the two libraries that once flanked it. The whole walk runs downhill from here.

2. Trajan's Market
Behind the column, the brick semicircle climbing the hillside — often called the world's first shopping mall, which oversells it but isn't wrong. The museum inside is good and rarely busy. Otherwise just read it from the street.

3. Via dei Fori Imperiali
Walk down the broad avenue Mussolini drove through the fora in the 1930s. On weekends and many evenings it closes to traffic — that's when to do this. The imperial fora lie open on both sides, lit gold near sunset.

4. Forum of Augustus
On the left, the high tufa wall and three surviving columns of the Temple of Mars Ultor. Augustus built it to settle a vow made before avenging Caesar. Lean on the railing; you're looking down into two thousand years.

5. The Roman Forum edge
Further down on the right, the original Forum — the political heart of the republic — spreads below the road. You can see most of it from the railings for nothing; the ticketed entrance is round the corner if you want in.

6. The Colosseum
The road delivers you to it head-on, which is the right way to arrive. Walk a full lap of the outside before deciding whether to go in. At dusk the travertine turns the colour of the lighting, and the crowds thin. Colosseo Metro is right there.

The Fori Imperiali: the promenade to the Colosseum