Off season we had a great experience with the gladiator school. We basically received a private lesson for our two boys for two hours and Piero (aka Marcus Aurelius) was super engaging, entertaining, fully bought in and ya four boys totally sucked in to the gladiator school. It definitely helped that we had done the amphitheater Flavius tour two days prior and that we had watched most of the Gladiator movie. Constructive criticism would be to provide more info directly to clients so that they know what to expect: off the beaten path, out of town, down an unmarked road, in the woods and MANY mosquitos. My daughter and I were eaten alive for two hours as we watched the boys train to be gladiators.

As advertised, gladiator training aimed at kids. Started with about a half hour in a museum talking about the history of gladiators. I was a little worried here but the guide emphasized the blood and gore and kept the kids transfixed. This was followed by a series of exercises in the training yard - obstacle course sort of stuff. Then some basic fencing lessons, and a gladiator ‘tournament’ at the end. There was a group of about 20 of us there for this session, everyone had a wonderful time. I gather this was large for them. Mainly kids taking it, but there was one couple with no kids and a couple of fathers taking it along with the children. Perfect for the energetic 6 to 13 year old set, if your kids are smaller or less focused I’d recommend having an adult take it with them. If these guys sold wooden practice swords at the end they could make a (figurative) killing. I have already recommended this to multiple friends considering taking their kids to Rome.

We all loved the gladiator training. We paid for our son to participate, but the instructor got us all involved... fun for the whole family! There were 3 boys participating and their families, so a nice size group. I took over a hundred photos. this will be one of those memories we will talk about for a long time.