VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES
Virtual Guided Tours of Italy: Travel the World from the Comfort of your Home!
The New Frontier of Cultural Travel Experience! Virtual Guided Tours with an expert Guide using the Zoom App you can connect live, interact, share with your family. Each Guided Tour is about 50 minutes to an hour of LIVE streaming time, you can ask live questions and interact with other participants and at the end take our quiz!
It’s a fun and engaging and fun way to spend your time with your Family, Friends or Colleagues! It is also a perfect ‘virtual experience’ for Schools, Universities and a Great Team Building tool where colleagues can learn about Leadership and Challenges in History!
HOW DOES IT WORK?
After registering or purchasing your tour you will receive a voucher with a Zoom link, and a Meeting Id and a Password. You only need to open the link in Google Chrome from your PC or download the free app to watch it from tablet or phone. You may also connect your device to tv to enjoy and share the show with your family.
You only need to buy one ticket per each device connected, not per person, so the whole family can watch from one device!!
Watch the Promo video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMeH-ubWfu0
Get in Touch: info@thegrandtoureurope.com
BOOK ONLINE https://www.thegrandtoureurope.com/virtual-guided-tours/
ONLINE CALENDAR
Jan 4th 22:00 Rome Time CEST
(9 PM GMT / 4 PM EST / 1 PM PST)
St Peters Basilica, Emperor Constantine and the Origins of Christianity
Saint Peters Basilica in the Vatican is the world’s largest Church and a stark image of the Catholic Roma Church: Baroque splendour, pompous ceremonies, large crowds. But all these grandeur had humble origins: the Tomb of Saint Peter the Apostle originally believed to be a simple earthly burial, later transformed in a red shrine and eventually buried under the large Basilica build by Emperor Constantine, who sought in the new religion a fresh start for a national belief that could unite once more the Romans under a new faith, at a time when nobody believed and worshipped the old gods anymore.
Jan 3rd 3 PM EST TIME – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Jan 5th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 22:30 PM Rome Time CEST
(9:30 PM GMT / 4:30 PM EST / 1:30 PM PST)
Masterpieces from The Medici Collections
Originally built as the Offices for the City of Florence, the Galleries host today the most important collection of Renaissance art in the world. From Piero Della Francesca to Filippo Lippi, from Botticelli to Perugino and Ghirlandaio, from Michelangelo to Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, and many others including Caravaggio, the Uffizi Galleries offers a unique collection of Italian art displayed mostly in a chronological order that makes easy to understand and navigate the various styles of Florentine art thought the centuries and how it became the “School of the World”.
Jan 9th 3 PM EST TIME – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Caravaggio: The Anabasis of the Soul
Caravaggio, admired and loved by his contemporaries, was almost ignored for centuries to be rediscovered as one of the greatest masters only in the XX century. He had a violent life, and was on the run for the last years of his short life, we will follow his travels to show how fast his style and art was changing as he rushed towards the inevitable end of a violent but extremely productive life.
Jan 10th 3 PM EST TIME – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Jan 12th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 22:30 PM Rome Time CEST (9:30 PM GMT / 4:30 PM EST / 1:30 PM PST)
Michelangelo or the pursuit of Fame
For Michelangelo sculpting and painting was not the making of an artwork, but to bring to this world something already existing in the Mind of God. So all his life Michelangelo’s main pursuit was to live up to this call, a mission that he carried out meticulously and fighting against anyone who stood in his way, from the Medici to the Popes. Michelangelo’s life will illuminate lots of its artworks and achievements, especially in the last years when he moved to Rome and also became the architect of the Basilica of Saint Peters.
Jan 16th 4 PM EST TIME – 22:00 Rome Time CEST
(9 PM GMT / 4 PM EST / 12 PM PST)
Leonardo da Vinci, the Genius
Leonardo da Vinci is universally recognized as an Absolute Genius, way ahead of his time, and he embodies more than anyone else, the Italian Renaissance: Science, Technology, Study of Nature, Art, Architecture, Engineering, Poetry, Anatomy, Geology, Geography, there is no field of human knowledge that he left unexplored.. Although he always wanted to be acknowledged mostly as a Scientist and an Inventor, in his lifetime he was mainly known and employed as a painter and architect, ad often as a military and infrastructure engineer, in which he excelled. Anyway, he was ambitious, and he sought to publish science and research books all his life, which were never printed in his lifetime nor till much later in the XIX century. This Virtual Experience offers an unusual look at the life story of one of the most gifted men who ever lived, a Great Italian and a truly inspiring figure, often only superficially known, who deserves to be better understood.
Jan 17th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
The Secrets of the Sistine Chapel
FREE VIRTUAL GUIDED TOUR
Jan 24th 3 PM EST TIME – – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Pompeii: the buried lives
When the Vesuvius Volcano erupted many citizens of Pompeii tried to escape, but others seek refuge in their building and remained trapped with their belongings for centuries. Today over two-thirds of the city have been excavated and the bodies of those Pompeiians have been found, telling us their story, together with their houses, their temples, their thermal baths and thousand of objects, artefacts, statues, frescoes, mosaics. We will explore Pompeii in a narrative way bring back to life the Pompeiians and their stories up to their tragic end.
Jan 26th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 22:30 PM Rome Time CEST
(9:30 PM GMT / 4:30 PM EST / 1:30 PM PST)
Jan 31st 3 PM EST TIME –– 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Raphael The Master of Sublime Beauty
Raphael was the son of the artist Giovanni Santi and was sent to study at the workshop of Pietro Perugino at an early age. Although he died young at the age of 37, he left an amazing number of masterpieces, portraits, large frescoes, and his legacy was inherited by a number of talented artists who had worked with him for a number of years. We will have a closer look at his unique life and artworks, his relationship with women, the popes, and his lesser-known activity as an architect in which he excelled as well.
Feb 7th 3:00 PM EST TIME – – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
The Secrets of the Vatican
The Vatican is often synonymous of secrecy, and in fact, there is so much more than meets the eye within its the walls, after a brief overview of the history of the Papal State, and how it came to be the world’s smallest country, we will explore with hires photos and 3d photographic models some of the hidden areas of the Vatican: The Masks Room with the Pope’s secret Chair, The Secret Archive, the Tower of The Winds, the Library, the Niccoline Chapel and other rooms that the common visitor doesn’t even suspect their existence just walking in front of closed doors. Lastly, we will explore the Pauline Chapel, Michelangelo’s unknown masterpiece painted just after the completion of the Sistine Chapel Last Judgement for Pope Paul II Farnese. An incredible opportunity to learn all the behind the scenes of the Vatican City State! BOOK HERE
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Feb 14th 3:00 PM EST TIME – – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
In the Belly of Naples: Stories and Art from an Ancient city
A virtual tour through some of the most precious hidden treasure of Naples, starting from the Pio Monte della Misericordia, which was founded by seven young people from Naples in 1601. The historical palace and the church built in the XVII century, still preserve a wide artistic heritage. Among them is one of the best-known masterpieces of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, as well as a rich group of paintings from different schools and periods. We will continue discovering the Via dei Tribunali which is similar to the old Decumanus, the old Roman city main road, and we will visit some masterpieces hidden in the churches of central Naples, such as “Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple” by Luca Giordano in the Girolaminis church, the Madonna dell’Arco, the paintings by Mattia Preti in the church of S. Pietro a Majella, the incredible Veiled Christ by Sammartino and the Sansevero Chapel, and incredible masterpiece of the architecture and sculpture of XVIII century late Baroque Art.
Feb 21st 3:00 PM EST TIME – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
The Vatican Museums: The Collections of the Popes
The Vatican Museums are a complex of more than 20 collections, spanning nearly ten thousand years, from 8 millennia BC vases from the middle east to XX century art, displayed in over 8 km of galleries (5 miles) and about 300 rooms. In this overview we’ll start from the Pinecone Courtyard, explore the collection of Greek and Roman sculptures, in the Belvedere Complex, including the famous statue of Apollo, the Laocoon and the Belvedere Torso, the statues of animals, the Coffins of St. Helen and St. Constance, the Galleries of Tapestries and the frescoed Maps of all Italy painted in 1585. The Vatican Museums also include a small Egyptian Collection, an important Etruscan Museums, the Portraits from Palmyra, statues from Hadrian’s Villa and many other wonders than we will explore using a number of 3d images, photos and videos and great storytelling to condense it all in a comprehensive but agile virtual experience. Great for both connoisseurs and first timers who want to learn more or just get acquainted with the Vatican and its Museums.
Feb 28th 3:00 PM EST TIME – – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
The Myth of Ancient Rome: Augustus and the Fields of Mars
When Octavian Augustus became emperor after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC he had already been using the Story of the Origins of Rome and its mythology to carve a space in it for himself and his family. Historians often say that the winner tells history, but in this case, as, in fact, in many other cases, the man winner is the one with the best story, and this is certainly true for Octavian and the Myth of Rome. We’ll explore how Augustus turned the Fields of Mars and central Rome into an urbanistic celebration of himself and Julius Caesar legacy. The Ara Pacis, the Pantheon, the Horologium and many other urbanistic and architectonical features of the new Rome built for the Emperor blow the Gens Julia horn and celebrate them as the Family born from the sacred blood of the founders to rule Rome and make it the great ruler of the world.
Special “Winter in Venice” Collection
For the fast fifteen years or so I have been travelling to Venice every winter leading groups of art students and art enthusiasts. 2021 will be the first year when this will not happen, and I truly miss the festive atmosphere of the Venetian Carnival, the misty mornings and the stinging cold evenings sipping my prosecco by a Canal or enjoying the life passing by on Lista di Spagna. So, as an Homage to Venice and its art and beauty, I have created this four experiences for people already in Love with the Serenissima, and as you may know when it comes to Venice there are only two kinds of people: those who visited and love it, and those who don’t love it yet, because they haven’t been there…. yet.
Jan 30th – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Vivaldi the sound of Venice
Antonio Vivaldi was, at the beginning of the last century, consider a minor Venetian musician, known mainly for some tunes used by one of Bach’s sons in his compositions, and then forgotten. But when at the beginning of 1900 a large collection of his manuscripts were uncovered in a private collection, with thousands of partitions and hundreds of concertos, a new Genius of Music was uncovered and he has become one of the most famous and played baroque musicians ever since. We will look into his life, his time, his personal struggles and a secret love story. We’ll dive into his music following some original autograph partiture, paintings of his time, and much more.
Feb 6th – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Titian, the Master of Colour
Tiziano Vecellio, simply known as Titian, is one of the greatest masters of the Italian Renaissance, standing tall with his more popular Florentine contemporaries like Michelangelo and Leonardo. He was gifted with a long ad productive life and his style evolved form the allegorical and mysterious composition close to his master Giorgione’s style, to an almost impressionist style bold and evident brushstroke. A modern, intense and glorious master who enchanted Nobles, Popes, Kings and Emperors with his art.
Feb 13th – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
The Bold and Furious: Tintoretto in Venice
Son of a “Tintor”, a humble cloth dyer, Jacopo Robusti known as Il Tintoretto, was one of the most productive artists of Venice, making some of the largest canvases known to these days. His style was fast, bold, energetic, with flashes of light and dancing figures in a dream like background. He transfigured painting into something oneiric, magical but at the same time direct and spontaneous. We’ll’ enter the Palazzo Ducale, or Doges Palace in Venice, and the Scola Grande di San Rocco to admire his artworks right in the places where they were originally meant to be, giving us the unique possibility to experience his art exactly how he designed it.
Feb 20th – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Andrea Palladio and the Venetian Renaissance
Palladio is synonymous of classicism and solemn buildings: almost every XVIII and XIX century public building in Europe and North America had some of the style and the feature of Palladian architecture. He was able to interpret the Renaissance style brought to Venice by Roman and Florentine artists like Sansovino and Serlio, in a new almost quintessential way that created a new language of which he wrote a complete grammar. We’ll explore his buildings in Venice and in the Veneto Region, as well as his legacy that spread around the world making him one of the most influential artists of all times.
Feb 27th – 21:00 Rome Time CEST
(8 PM GMT / 3 PM EST / 12 AM PST)
Antonio Canova or the Ideal Beauty in Marble
Antonio Canova was considered the greats sculptor of his time and worked for Popes, Queens and even for Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned him George Washington’s statue in which he is Portrayed as an ancient roman statesman. Canova embodied the ideal of classicism and the renewed interest in the roman empire art in the XIX century’s Europe, he is considered the greatest classicist sculptor and his works are in the most important museums in the world: from St Peterburg’s Hermitage to the Louvre, from the Borghese Gallery to the Vatican Museums. We will discover his masterpieces and his legacy, form his origins in Possagno in the mainland of Venice, to his works in Rome and the Vatican and his travels to France and England.
Jan 3rd 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Masterpieces from the Medici Collections
Jan 4th 4:00 PM EST TIME – 10:00 PM Rome TIME
St Peters Basilica, Emperor Constantine and the Origins of Christianity
Jan 5th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 10:30 PM Rome TIME
Masterpieces from the Medici Collections
Jan 9th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Caravaggio: The Anabasis of the Soul
Jan 10th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Jan 12th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 10:30 PM Rome TIME
Michelangelo the pursuit of Fame
Jan 16th 4 PM EST TIME – 10 PM Rome TIME
Leonardo da Vinci, the Genius
Jan 17th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
The Secrets of the Sistine Chapel
FREE VIRTUAL GUIDED TOUR
Jan 23th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
The Colosseum and the Life of the Gladiators
Jan 24th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Pompeii: the buried lives
Jan 26th 4:30 PM EST TIME – 10:30 PM Rome TIME
Raphael, The Master of Sublime Beauty
Jan 30th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Vivaldi the sound of Venice
Jan 31st 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Raphael, The Master of Sublime Beauty
Feb 6th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
Titian, the Master of Colour
Feb 7th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
The Secrets of the Vatican
Feb 13th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
The Bold and Furious: Tintoretto in Venice
Feb 14th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
In the Belly of Naples: Stories and Art from an Ancient city
Feb 20th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
Andrea Palladio and the Venetian Renaissance
Feb 21st 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
The Vatican Museums: The Collections of the Popes
Feb 27th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
Antonio Canova or the Ideal Beauty in Marble
Feb 28th 3:00 PM EST TIME – 9:00 PM CEST Rome TIME
The Myth of Ancient Rome: Augustus and the Fields of Mars
March 7th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
St Peters Basilica, Emperor Constantine and the Origins of Christianity
March 14th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
The Rooms of Raphael in the Vatican
March 21st 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
The Colosseum and the Life of the Gladiators
March 28th 3 PM EST TIME – 9 PM Rome TIME
Bernini vs Borromini, the rivalry that shaped Rome
