ROME · ITALY
Ancient Rome, the Vatican, and the long lunch in between.
Skip-the-line tickets for the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel, food and wine walks through Trastevere, the catacombs under the Appian Way, and the day trips down to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.
Only in Rome
Three things you can only do in Rome.
Old towns, great art and good food turn up everywhere. A 2,000-year-old arena you can walk into, a country the size of a garden with the Sistine Chapel inside it, and burial tunnels older than the city above do not.
The arena still standing
Ancient Rome, on its feet
The Colosseum held 50,000 people for the games and still stands in the middle of the city. Next to it, the Roman Forum and the Palatine are the actual streets, temples and palaces the empire was run from. Walk the arena floor where the gladiators waited, then climb the hill the emperors lived on.
- 1 Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Guided Tour
- 2 Rome: Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum Guided Tour
- 3 Rome: Guided Tour of Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill
A country in a city
The Vatican & the Sistine Chapel
The smallest country on Earth sits inside Rome, and it holds one of the greatest art collections anywhere. Miles of galleries lead to Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, and St Peter’s rises next door. Go at opening, before the tour buses arrive, and look up.
- 1 Vatican: Museums & Sistine Chapel Entrance Ticket
- 2 Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Tour with Optional Basilica
- 3 Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basilica Guided Tour
The city beneath
Underground Rome
Beneath the old Appian Way, early Christians cut miles of burial tunnels into the soft tufa, layer on layer, centuries before the churches above existed. Down in the dark, past the bone crypts, is a Rome older and stranger than anything at street level.
- 1 Rome: Crypts and Catacombs Underground Tour with Transfers
- 2 The Original Roman Crypts and Catacombs Tour with Transfers
- 3 Rome: Catacombs of St. Callixtus Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
The one everyone books
Rome’s single most-booked experience.
More travellers reserve this than anything else on the site. If you lock in just one thing before you fly, make it this one.
The classics
Rome’s Most Popular Tours & Tickets
The Colosseum and the Forum, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, the Borghese Gallery and the Pantheon. The visits almost every first trip is built around.
Where to begin
The visits a Roman trip is built around.
Ancient Rome, the Vatican, the food, the day trips and the galleries. The handful of categories most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The big question
How to see the headline sites.
Rome’s two giants, the Colosseum complex and the Vatican, each eat half a day and sell out well ahead. Here is how they stack up, plus the passes that cover everything else.
The Roman table
Cacio e pepe, and the people who make it.
Rome owns four pasta dishes: carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana and gricia, each better here than anywhere else. Spend an evening eating across Trastevere and the old Jewish Ghetto, roll fresh pasta in a Roman kitchen, or taste your way through the Testaccio market. In this city the food is the sightseeing.
Read the guide: food and wine tours →Vatican City
Michelangelo’s ceiling, before the crowds.
The Vatican Museums hold four miles of art that all leads to one room: the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo spent four years on his back painting the ceiling. Early-access and skip-the-line tours get you in before the tour buses, when the galleries are quiet and the chapel is almost your own. St Peter’s Basilica and the dome climb wait next door.
See Vatican tours & tickets →The free Rome
Half of Rome is an open-air museum.
The Pantheon has stood for nineteen centuries and barely costs a thing to walk into. The Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona and a dozen churches with Caravaggios on the walls are all out in the open, all free, all a short stroll apart. Some of the best of Rome you simply walk through.
Browse Pantheon tours & tickets →Beyond the walls
Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and the hill towns.
Rome makes an easy base for the rest of central Italy. Take the high-speed train south to the buried city of Pompeii under Vesuvius and the cliff-hanging Amalfi Coast, head out to Tivoli for Hadrian’s villa and the Renaissance fountains, or run up to Tuscany for the vineyards. Long days, but unforgettable ones.
- 1 From Rome: Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, and Sorrento Day Trip
- 2 From Rome: Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Positano Day Trip
- 3 Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Positano Day Trip from Rome
- 4 Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius Day Trip from Rome with Pizza Lunch
Rome after dark
The city is better once the lights come on.
When the day-trippers leave, Rome softens. The Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon glow under the spotlights with the crowds gone, evening food crawls roll from one trattoria to the next, a Vespa sidecar runs the floodlit monuments, and the braver tours go looking for ghosts in the old lanes. The cooler, quieter, better hour to be out.
See all 24 evening experiences →Rome by landmark
Pick a piece of Rome.
Ancient Rome for the Colosseum and the Forum. Vatican City for the museums and St Peter’s. Trastevere for the food, the Borghese for the art, the Pantheon for the old centre, and Castel Sant’Angelo on the river.
By the kind of day
Pick how to spend the day.
Skip the line at the big sites. Eat your way through a food tour or a cooking class. Taste Roman wine. See the city by bike, e-bike, golf cart or Vespa sidecar, or walk it with a guide.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Rome? A long weekend that takes in the ancient city, the Vatican and the food, with a day to spare for Pompeii.
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