Rome - so confused!

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Bear in mind I'm easily confused! 😂

DH and I going to Rome in late September, never been before - someone said we ought to book all tickets in advance for things we want to do/see. However I've read somewhere that even if you do have pre-booked tickets you still have to expect to queue for 2-3 hours to get in. Is this true??

We're also being befuddled on all the main attraction websites by the varying levels of tickets (ie. the Colosseum, there are 3 different kinds of tickets - we just want to go in and look around, argh!!)

Anyone who has been recently that can advise best ways to book/avoid queues for main things?

Get your tickets for the Coliseum at the Palatine and you get faster, our hotel advised us of that, its a fast track ticket. The Vatican is a huge queue and always will be, and once inside its packed with a huge queue to see the Sistine Chapel, and a queue to walk through it while kept moving too, it's just a popular place. I went in December and still had a few queues so not sure what it's like in summer. I think the main thing is to get tickets in advance so you aren't queueing twice, once for tickets and again to get in to the sites as the ticket offices aren't in the Coliseum itself, just like they're selerate at historic sites like Tower of London and Stone Henge.

Rome is a beautiful city to just wander round in, history smacks you in the face round every corner and it's just so gorgeous there, enjoy!

Not been recently, but we did pre book the main sites like Vatican, colosseum and forum romanum as well as a few other things.

We booked with a guide (Rome tours with kids) so they got the tickets and we only had about a 20 minute max wait. We also choose morning tours to avoid some of the crowds. Hope that helps.

Apologies for myriad typos, phone keypad is rubbish!

What attractions are you talking about exactly?

We were in Rome earlier this summer and booked a Skip the Line tour on TripAdvisor - it was a 1 hour tour and more than worth it, it was really interesting and enjoyable, you definitely wouldn't get the same experience just walking in tbh. The other members of our group when on to the Forum and Palastine Hill to continue the tour.

www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g187791-d17800062-Colosseum_Express_Skip_The_Line_Guided_Tour-Rome_Lazio.html

I'm not sure what else needs tickets? The pantheon is free in, there may be a short line but go early and you'll fly in.

Rome is a fabulous city, its enough to just wander around eating Gelato and enjoying the atmosphere.

Watching with interest

Book a Vatican guided tour and you don’t have to queue

Coop culture website has prebookable tickets. You can get a combined ticket for the Forum/Palatine Hill and Colosseum. The Colosseum you can pay extra to go beneath floor level and have tours. Vatican museum has timed entrance slots so you "skip the line". There is also a Roma pass www.romapass.it which gives entrance to some attractions over a time period. There is a hop-on hop-off bus tour or you can use the underground and buses but there is a lot to see just by walking around that is free. The Pantheon is worth visiting, lots of churches with great art, Largo di Torre Argentina (especially if you like cats!), Trajan column, Spanish Steps, Trevi fountain, theatre of Marcellus , Villa Borghese gardens (art museum extra) , Oppian hill (fee for Nero's Golden House tours) and so on.

We've just left Rome. Colosseum tickets have to be booked in advance. I agree it's v confusing. We had 24 hour tickets to see the 2 levels but not into the actual arena. It was busy, but didn't take long as all tickets timed entry. Forum and Palatine hill can be visited at any point over the 24 hours. The Vatican again you can book in advance for the museums. Entry to St Peter's Basilica is free but you do queue. Didn't take long. No vests/shorts for women. Pantheon also free but again queue - but not long. Enjoy!

the BIG mistake we made when visiting Rome was not realising that you have to get a different ticket if you're not in the EU. We stupidly bought tickets for the Colosseum, the Vatican and Saint Angelo's castle, only to be asked for ID upon entry. When we showed our tickets and ID, we were told all 3 times that they didn't match because we had bought tickets for EU citizens only. They were about 1/4 of the price! We then had to pay again for non-EU citizen tickets and couldn't refund the original ones. Fucking Brexit.

The queues are not 2-3 hours long though. Half an hour max. At least in my experience when we went last December.

We went in spring this year, we bought a combined ticket for guided tour of colloseum, roman forum and palatine Hill which was around £35pp I recall, was really worth it, we didn't pay extra to go below the colloseum. That was the only tour we booked and we did it 24 hours in advance. We went to the pantheon ourselves, queued around 15 mins to get in. Went to Vatican City ourselves and got there early to avoid queues, paid extra to climb to top of St peter's basilica, that was good. Also went to circus maximus and the trevi fountain ourselves. Rest of the time we mooched and accidently stumbled across interesting sights like Torres Argentina, where caesar was assassinated. Ate out mainly in Trastevere District, great restaurants there. Walked 9 miles + a day and thoroughly enjoyed it. Have fun!

Whatever they do in Italy, it will be confusing. Nothing is easy!! Just go and get in is what we all want!

For the Colosseum the basic ticket costs 18 euros. It includes the Roman Forum which you can visit at any time within 24 hours of the date you choose. The Colosseum itself has a timed entry that you choose on the website. The more expensive tickets include various extras like the underground part of the Colosseum or guided tours.

When we went a few years ago we didn't pre-book. We went into the Forum via the Palatine - much less crowded as pp said. We also rocked up to the Vatican at about 2pm - no queue, just walked right in but I'm not sure how usual that is.

We walked and walked. I love Rome.

I'm just back from a week in Rome.

The only three things we needed to book for were the Vatican Museums (& Sistine Chapel), Colosseum, and Galleria Borghese.

We booked a guided tour of the Colosseum, which included the Palatine and Forum, this was really worthwhile and we wouldn't have got as much out of the trip if we hadn't.

I wish we hadn't bothered with the Vatican Museums tour, but going with a guide at a fixed time is currently the only way to access the museums. Don't know if it's different out of the summer craziness. it was a long and painful shuffle with a huge volume of people, we would have skipped certain areas and spent more time at others if we'd had the choice. We queued at peak times for St Peter's and the Pantheon, at most an hour (both really worthwhile).

Did a fantastic ebike tour along the Appian Way to the aqueducts, this was a real highlight. Otherwise we enjoyed just wandering, stopping for coffee or ice cream where we wanted, diving into interesting churches when we got hot, and if we ticked off the 'must sees' then great.

I absolutely love Rome and am a museum/church/history nerd. When I went to Rome with my family as a teenager, I found the queuing for and around the Vatican and coliseum mind numbing.

Having been back several times since, I have revisited the Vatican museums for specific research and not bothered to go round the coliseum again. The coliseum is an amazing piece of history just standing there that you can see from the outside without buying a ticket. I personally didn't find the ticketed experience that fascinating. However, if I had todo one of the two, I'd probably do coliseum and skip Vatican museums.

For church related history, you could go on a tour of the early Christian catacombs. You could go round many different churches. I'd recommend the Pantheon and Santa Maria solar Minerva, both previously pagan temples

Villa Giulia is good for Etruscan stuff. Palazzo Massimo has amazing roman frescos. There is so much to see that doesn't require huge queues etc. As PP said, you'll just want to walk everywhere as it really is history and beauty everywhere!

Thank you so much for all the replies! Going to sit down with dh and plan everything out. Really excited now! 😊

Also a lot of things you can book at short notice. We went at Easter and got to Castel Sant'angelo to find a massive queue. Got out my phone and bought tickets and walked straight in. 😉

Book a tour in advance for Sistine chapel / Vatican museums but just turn up early for St. Peter’s and Colleseum and buy on door you should be fine both so huge. Everything else is just walk in / by (trevi fountain / pantheon / piazza. Navona ) etc. don’t try and do too much pleasures in wandering around.

We left Rome 2 days ago. We pre-booked the Vatican Museum (60 days out), did not book a guided tour, just entry and an audio guide. We are not guided tour fans, they always seem to last 50% longer than you want them to. Audio guide great. Absolutely no queues on entry at all and minimal shuffling. I was pleasantly surprised after all the bad press.

Colleseum - dreadful website- we booked timed entry (30 days out) for "the wonders of the colosseum" ticket. No queues at all on entry, straight in. With hindsight the standard ticket would have been fine. Should have remembered to avoid the tours... It was also brutally hot and the tour guide ended the tour early. GOD IT WAS HOT.

Anyway, these were all official tickets (I.e. not tour companies selling them at a mark-up) and there were no queues other than a 30 second brush with security.

We had a great time!

Very jealous it’s a fabulous city just back and we will return soon!

The queues at the Vatican are insane. People pushing shoving and being arseholes in full sun for hours, it is still worth going but book skip the line tickets.

Worth booking in advance for the coliseum too but it doesn't have to be far in advance, we booked our tickets while standing outside!

Not sure it is worth booking for anything else.

Don't believe the "get there early to avoid the crowds" message. Everyone does the same, we had the forum and palatine to ourselves after 3pm, similar in Florence too. The queues are biggest mid-morning.

Not so much confusing as over staffed. Every attraction however small has one person to sell you a ticket and a second person to tear your ticket, even if there is barely room for two members of staff and there's a turnstile. Large attractions have one queue to buy a ticket, another to get in and often a third for pre-booked tickets or tours, each part of an attraction will have a separate entrance and ticket, so one for the church tower, one for the crypt, another for the museum etc.

We went just before covid and everything we booked was a timed entry and no queue eg the collosseum tour had a meeting point and they took us straight through.
One tip I was given was book the Vatican breakfast. The breakfast is crap but you get in at 7.30 before all the queues and general business and it's great.

Colosseum

• book on Coop culture website (this is the official site), not through a tour guide or agent as they overbook a lot


• tickets are released 30 days in advance


• there are several sorts of tickets. The ones including the Underground section of the colosseum sell out in seconds and you’ll never get them. Ones including the Arena area - these are worth getting if you can IMO but they don’t include a tour guide. Then there are the regular Colosseum tickets (no underground or arena) which you can get with or without a tour guide, or with an audio tape tour.


• We got Arena tickets without a guide and downloaded Rick Steves’ free audio guide which was fun for kids


• all these ticket types also include entry to the Forum which you can do the day before/after the colosseum if you want. You will have a time slot for colosseum entry (strict) but not for the Forum.

With tickets there was no queue - maybe 4 people ahead of us.

Glad I came across this thread. We've booked to go in October half term. Really looking forward to it. Some great advice.