Explore Rome in Google Street View

Rome is the best city in the world for noticing what is underneath. Nothing was demolished so much as built over, which means a medieval church often sits on a Roman foundation and a modern street frequently follows a two thousand year old route. In Street View this is visible constantly: the curve of Piazza Navona is the shape of a stadium that stood there, and the road pattern around it has been preserved by buildings rather than by planning.

The centre is largely pedestrian, and Google captured most of it on foot. That changes the experience completely. The Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps are all reachable at walking pace with the camera at head height, and you arrive at them the way a person does, out of a narrow street and into a sudden open space. Very few cities give you that transition virtually, because very few cities are laid out this tightly.

The Colosseum deserves the time. From outside you can follow the whole ellipse and see how much of the outer wall is missing, which is easier to grasp when you can circle it than in any photograph. The stone was quarried for other buildings across centuries, and the ragged edge where the outer ring stops is the evidence. Look across at the Arch of Constantine on the same view and the contrast in preservation is stark.

Trastevere is the neighbourhood that rewards aimless wandering. Streets barely three metres wide, ivy on the walls, washing overhead, and no logic to the layout at all. It sits across the river from the centre and was working class for most of its history, which is why it kept its scale while the other bank was being rebuilt for popes and tourists.

The Vatican is a separate country and it behaves like one in the imagery. St Peter's Square is fully covered and the colonnade is worth circling to see Bernini's trick, where the four rows of columns line up perfectly from two specific marked spots on the pavement. Those spots are visible in Street View, which means you can stand on one and check.

One practical note. Rome's centre has very few straight lines, so navigating in Street View by dragging along a street will frequently deposit you somewhere unexpected. That is not a failure of the imagery. It is a city that grew from footpaths, and following it in a browser reproduces the experience of getting lost in it fairly accurately.