Hi I'm in Rome for a few days in June and have a list of places I mean to visit. I don't have time to queue - period! I've heard I can buy a ticket to the Colosseum online, would anyone recommend that? Or is it not worth the paper it's printed on??????
Any other advice for a whirlwind tour is appreciated!
Thanks!
Yes, I thoroughly recommend pre-booking as much as possible. When we went last year, we pre-booked the Vatican Museum and also bought the Archeologia Card, which meant we went straight to the special kiosks in the Colloseum (bypassing queues and guides....we were inisde in under 5 minutes)and also bypassed queues to get into the main Forum, Palatine, the National Museums, the Baths of Caracalla (my favourite site in the city) as well as the Villa of the Quintili and the Tomb of Cecilia Metella out on the Appian Way.
Alternatively, you can just get the combined Colloseum/Forum/Palatine pass.
Don't buy 'all-day' metro tickets.
Do go to Ostia
Do go to the newly opened Crypta Balbi museum
And definately check out the Early Medieval museum down in the EUR district to see all the lovely Langobard goodies.
We got all our tickets here, which seemed to be the same price as buying them at local tourist offices.
http://www.rome.info/museums/cards/
Matt, thank you. Alot of those places, Medieval Museum, Vatican, etc are not on our list. We will be ruthlessly Roman. Trevi Fountain, eh? What's that!?
Great advice, I will pick up a ticket. Thanks!
Depending on where you are staying you can walk to everything. The Pantheon (free and a must!), Trevi fountain, Piazza Navona (built over Domitian's race track), Piazza Colonna with Marcus Aurelius' column is all quite close and is all outside and free. Actually we always stay near the Vatican and walk to everything including the Forum and beyond. It's a much nicer way to see Rome.
From the Palatine hill you get a beautiful high view of the entire city including the baths of Caracalla, the forum, Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. The house of Augustus on the Palatine is only open in the morning, the house of Livia is usually open all day.
Again I highly recommend walking. For a great dinner head to the district of Trestevere. It's a great neighborhood with one of my favorite restaurants:
Osteria Pizzaria Margherita
Vicolo del Cinque 31a
Roma Trestevere
Everything is open late and there are lots of people just enjoying the nights talking, especially on the bridge across the Tiber.
I try to go every year for my anniversary. Enjoy it. I love Rome.
You can also go very early to make sure you are one of the first. I did that in Rome and got in every location, the benefit being that almost no tourists were there yet, and to be among 5 other people in the sixtine chapel is a brilliant experience.
M.VIB.M.
Watch out for museum closures on a Monday.
Vatican Museum is closed sundays, but open Mondays. Just to be different.