Though I’ve visited Rome numerous times, I always discover something new (or ancient). On this trip, the Travel Office arranged a private after-hours tour of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the city’s oldest and most important basilicas.

Our evening began at our hotel, where our guide picked us up, oddly enough, in a golf cart. It worked well to whisk us across the city, weaving through traffic just as the sun was dissolving into the city’s palette of ocher and dusty rose. Our circuitous route took us past famous landmarks as our guide peeled back the layers of history. As we reached the Esquiline Hill, it became clear why Santa Maria Maggiore is considered one of the four major papal basilicas: It is simply enormous.

Reputedly, the original church was constructed here in 352, though no archaeological evidence has been found to support that. The building as it stands today is from the fifth century, consecrated by Pope Sixtus III. Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the few churches from that period that has maintained its original architecture and even some of the original interior decoration.

As we entered the church with our guide and an escort from the Vatican, an organist began to play. Ethereal music filled the church, and with no one but us inside, the vast space felt unexpectedly intimate. We paused for a moment to soak in the surroundings. The fading light filtered through stained glass beneath the expansive gilded ceiling. Unjostled by crowds, we could get a perfect view of the fifth-century mosaics stretching across the triumphal arch at the end of the nave.  

Our guide explained how the basilica has served as a site of papal ceremonies for centuries and that it holds what are believed to be fragments of the holy crib. The church is also the resting place of seven popes, including Pope Francis.

Our tour continued into the basement of the church, where excavations have revealed the foundations of a Roman villa, evidence of everyday life here before this became a sacred space. Bits of wall and traces of frescoes provided a reminder of Rome’s deep history.

Back upstairs, we saw one of the most famous (and newest) parts of the structure: Bernini’s elegant spiral staircase, completed during his time as architect of the basilica in the 17th century.

After visiting the small museum above, we continued farther up, climbing a dizzying set of narrow stairs to the roof. There, Rome spread out before us, its low but mighty skyline twinkling against the mauve sky. It was an extraordinary moment that left me — quite literally — breathless.

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