It’s just before 7 a.m. on a sunny Saturday morning in September, and my guide, Isa Calidonna of ArcheoRunning, is leading me through Rome’s sleepy sampietrini streets as they begin to awaken. Our pace ebbs and flows with the terrain, before we come to an abrupt halt at an unassuming street corner.
“See here.” Calidonna points upwards, guiding my eyes to the height of a first-floor window, where an ornate oval mosaic depicts the Virgin Mary cradling a swaddled baby Jesus. “This is one of many Madonnelle hidden in plain sight in Rome,” she says. “Once you know they are there, you will see them all around.”
It’s exactly for moments like this that I love taking guided tours of a new-to-me city: to spot the small, easily missed details that offer so much insight and context to the place I’m visiting. But this morning, I’ve swapped my usual walking tour for something new. I’m 20 minutes into my first-ever running tour, and I already can’t believe I’ve never done this before.
We run past a near-empty Trevi Fountain, its ornate travertine carvings bathed in buttery morning light, and greet café owners with a friendly “ciao!” as they unfold white tables and chairs to prepare for the morning rush. It feels like a different city from the one I met yesterday; in the morning silence, the weight of its history is palpable.
Calidonna is a licensed tour guide, running coach, and archaeologist with a PhD in art history. She set up her company, ArcheoRunning, just before the pandemic, and combines her many hats to show travelers a new perspective of her city on private tours. “I’ve found many people like to get out for a morning jog when they travel, especially if they are trying to shake off jet lag,” she tells me. “It is one of the best ways to get acquainted with a city and find your bearings.”
I follow in her well-paced footsteps down a quiet side street before she turns back and tells me to prepare myself for what’s about to come into view. We round a corner into an eerily quiet Piazza della Rotonda, with the Pantheon looming large ahead. In the next few days, I will walk this street many times, dodging large tour groups gathered around a flag-bearing guide and struggling to hear over the crowds. In those moments, I will think back to the awe of this morning—with just Calidonna, me, and a spattering of other early risers as she tells me the wondrous history of this mighty temple.
“I want to show you one thing,” Calidonna says, as she leads us towards the Pantheon’s entrance and its huge, bronze double doors, still closed at this time of day. “These are the original doors, almost 2,000 years old. Can you imagine all the people who have passed through them?”
We take a moment to indulge the thought before continuing our route to seek out more of Rome’s hidden shrines, which is the purpose of this morning’s run. This is a special tour designed to coincide with Rome’s Jubilee this year, highlighting the city’s Madonnelle. Once numbering in the thousands, these small street-corner shrines used to be lit with candles before modern streetlights illuminated the city. Today, around 500 remain, each telling a story of faith, art, and Roman tradition.
It’s one of many tours offered by ArcheoRunning. There’s the best of Rome, ticking off all the major landmarks; a scenic route through the tranquil gardens of Villa Borghese; a classic Colosseum tour; and even an Emily in Paris–themed tour, if that’s more your thing. All are around three miles, with plenty of built-in stops along the way, so you won’t be put off if you’re not a long-distance runner.
The tours are designed to cater to all abilities, and can even be adapted for power walking. The idea is to get your body moving, cover a little extra ground than you might during a walking tour, and discover as you go. It helps that Calidonna is also a qualified running instructor, pacing the run perfectly and adapting to the city’s many hills. For a novice runner like me, it never feels strenuous, but it’s still enough to feel like I have achieved something.
I am back at my hotel’s breakfast buffet before 9 a.m., ready to refuel and hungry to explore more of the city, with that slight feeling of smugness that runners often express. But today, I’m embracing it. The running high feels extra potent when it comes with the feeling that I’ve just had Rome’s iconic landmarks all to myself.
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