Rome runs on timed slots. Book the good ones first.
Which Colosseum ticket actually puts you on the arena floor. What the Vatican Museums cost before nine in the morning. Where to eat once the stone goes orange. Reviews of every tour you can book in Rome.
The Colosseum, the Sistine ceiling, a kitchen off Navona, and the tunnels under the sand.
Four bookings a first Roman week hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningColosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum Guided TourArena, Forum and Palatine on one combined ticket with a guide. Take the earliest slot — the Forum has no shade by eleven.
02The Vatican dayVatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour with Optional BasilicaFour kilometres of gallery before the Sistine ceiling, with the basilica added or not. Entry runs on half-hour slots.
03The afternoon indoors3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & TiramisuFettuccine, ravioli and tiramisu, rolled and then eaten, five minutes from Piazza Navona.
04The one to book earlyColosseum: Underground and Ancient Rome TourThe hypogeum under the arena floor, on a permit that caps the group. Summer dates go weeks out.
One ticket covers the Colosseum, the Forum and the Palatine. The versions differ in what you get to walk on.
Every combined ticket includes the same three sites. What changes is the access: the tiers, the sand itself, or the two-storey basement underneath it. Here is what each costs.
Six places in Rome you will end up standing in anyway.
An arena, a chapel ceiling, a fountain you cannot get near at noon, a river to cross for dinner, a gallery on a two-hour clock, and a road laid in 312 BC. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
What a day in Rome actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best Roman days come in under the price of dinner near the Pantheon.
Entry tickets, centro storico walks, pasta classes and the audio-guide versions of the big sites.
Guided Colosseum and Vatican mornings, food tours through Trastevere, the Appian Way by bike.
Private guides, the arena underground, and the long days south to Pompeii and the Amalfi coast.
The Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s are three separate problems.
The museums run four kilometres of gallery before the chapel, and the basilica is a different queue on the other side of the colonnade. Some tickets join them up and some do not. These are the ways through, and what each one skips.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Rome.
Every Rome tour →One arena and one chapel ceiling carry most of this city, and the tickets that get you into both without the queue carry the rest.
1
Museums & Sistine Chapel Entrance Ticket
Visit the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel with timed entry, optional audio guide, and a faster route past the ticket line.
From · $38
Read our review →2
Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour with Optional Basilica
from $79
3
Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basilica Guided Tour
from $22
4
Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum Guided Tour
from $52
5
Guided Tour of Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill
from $55
6
Colosseum & Forum with Audio Guide App -Optional Arena
from $41
7
Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill Guided Tour
from $59
8
Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & Basilica Tour
from $130
Rome eats late, eats cheap, and is unforgiving about carbonara.
Cacio e pepe, carbonara and gricia were all invented within a few miles of the Pantheon and the city has opinions about all three. Walk the Jewish Ghetto for fried artichokes, cross the river to Trastevere after eight, or roll the pasta yourself in a kitchen off Piazza Navona.
Every Roman food tour →
Rome does its best hour when the travertine goes orange.
The Forum lights up, the fountains keep running and the whole city moves outside for a spritz. Evening tours take the same routes with none of the daytime queue, and the concerts in the smaller churches start at nine.
Four Roman bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged the night before over a carafe. These four run on capped permits, timed entry slots and opening hours that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Borghese Gallery Guided Tour with Skip-the-Line EntryEntry is a strictly timed two-hour slot with a hard cap on numbers, and the gallery clears the room between them.
- 02Colosseum: Underground and Ancient Rome TourThe basement under the arena floor runs on a separate permit with small groups. Summer dates go weeks out.
- 03Domus Aurea Guided Group TourNero’s buried palace opens on weekends only and every visit is guided. Miss the window and there is no walk-up.
- 04Museums & Sistine Chapel Entrance TicketThe museums admit by half-hour slot. The first slots of the day are the only ones you can walk before the coach groups arrive.
Three things that happen in Rome and nowhere else.
Every European capital has a gallery and a good dinner. A two-storey basement under an arena floor, an unreinforced concrete dome with a hole in it, and thirty miles of original Roman road do not.
The Colosseum Hypogeum
Below the arena floor runs a two-storey basement of corridors, holding pens and thirty-two hand-cranked lift shafts that hauled scenery and animals up into the light. It filled with earth for centuries and is still open only on capped, guided permits, so the group is small and the date is fixed a long way out.
- 1Colosseum: Underground and Ancient Rome Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 12,691 reviews
- 2Crypts and Catacombs Underground Tour with Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 5,341 reviews
- 3Expert Guided Tour of Colosseum Arena OR Underground, and Forum★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,041 reviews
The Pantheon
The dome has stood unreinforced since Hadrian and is still the largest of its kind anywhere. The oculus is open to the sky, so rain falls into the building and runs away through slots cut in the marble floor. Entry is ticketed now, and the disc of light tracks across the coffers all day.
- 1Pantheon Timeless Marvel Guided Tour with Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,002 reviews
- 2Pantheon Priority Entry Ticket & Audio Guide App★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 3,234 reviews
- 3Enjoy Spritz and Pasta Making in Piazza Navona★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,681 reviews
The Via Appia Antica
Basalt slabs laid in 312 BC, rutted by cartwheels, running dead straight out of the city under umbrella pines with aqueduct arches marching across the fields alongside. On Sundays it closes to traffic, which is when the bike tours run and the road goes quiet enough to hear.
- 1Rome EBike Tour: Appian Way, Catacombs & Roman Aqueducts★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,766 reviews
- 2Appian Way, Catacombs, & Roman Aqueducts E-bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,421 reviews
- 3Appian Way E-bike Tour with Catacombs, Aqueducts & Food★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,210 reviews
In August the Forum has no shade and the queue is the whole morning.
From July the open sites are punishing by eleven and half the neighbourhood kitchens shut for the month. The answer is the same every year: do the stone early, then go indoors. Galleries, marble halls, a cooking bench and a cool cellar do not care what the thermometer says.
By landmark — where you actually want to stand
By kind of day — ruin, gallery, kitchen or road
The day trips Rome runs on: the hill towns, the wine hills, and the long haul south.
Tivoli
Castelli Romani
Civita
Florence
Pompeii
CivitavecchiaThe newest Rome tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Off the Beaten Track in Rome: Rione VI Parione Private Tour
Read our review →
Colosseum & Ancient Rome – private/small group TOUR
Read our review →
Best of Colosseum and Roman Forum Small Group Guided Tour
Read our review →
private tour: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica
Read our review →
Vatican and Trionfale Market Tour with Wine and Food Tasting
Read our review →
The Labyrinth of Rome between catacombs and ancient quarries
Read our review →
Skip the Line: Vatican Wheelchair Accessible Private Tour
Read our review →
Last Entry Colosseum, Arena, Forum & Rooftop Aperitif Small Group
Read our review →
St Paul Outside the Walls, Mamertine Prison, 3 Fontane Tour
Read our review →
Two Days Private Chauffeured Tour + Admission Tickets
Read our review →
