We start from Via Tunisi in the Prati district, just minutes from the Vatican Museums. Here you immediately feel Rome’s double identity: the “modern” late-19th-century city and, nearby, the spiritual and artistic heart of the Vatican. The Vatican Museums began in 1506, after the discovery of the famous Laocoön sculpture group, when Pope Julius II launched a collection that kept growing for centuries. Today the route leads to the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512.

Castel Sant’Angelo was built as the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian, around AD 123–139: a monumental tomb overlooking the Tiber. Over time it became a strategic fortress, a prison, and a refuge. Its connection to the Vatican is strong thanks to the Passetto di Borgo, a fortified corridor that allowed popes to reach the castle in times of danger. The name “Sant’Angelo” recalls a tradition from 590, when Pope Gregory the Great is said to have seen the Archangel Michael sheathing his sword, signaling the end of a plague.