Hi, I will be visiting Italy on December and wanted to know which are the best city passes for the following cities:
1 day in Venice
3 days in Florence
3 days in Rome
There are several city passes and I can't tell which one is the legitimate one online. Please help me find links for the best ones.
Thank you!
"Best" depends on what works for you.
Passes are usually not of much benefit in Italy- you have to do the math.
See what is covered and which venues you will definitely visit- add it up. Keep in mind that almost all venues now need prebooked timed entries.
For all venues- Use the official sites
Venice- a 24 hour vaporetto pass would be a money saver
I don't think any pass is going to be worth it for a 1 day visit.
You will need to book timed entries to St. Marlk's and Doges anyway. St. Mark's is just a few euros, not sure about Doges.
Florence
The Firenze Card can be a great savings IF your venue choices add up. You will still need to book timed entries for all the major venues- Uffizi, David, Duomo.
I don't think the Duomo couplex is included in Firenze Card
The transportation inclusion probably of no benefit- Florence is very compact- you wouldn't really need a bus anywhere
Rome
Roma Pass is the one most often mentioned- another that is probably not of much use. Vatican is not included., you stil need prebooked entries to Colosseum, Pantheon, Borghese, etc. The transportation component is probably not necessary for a short stay
Do some searches here on this forum
"Colosseum tickets"
"Uffizi tickets"
All of these things come up frequently and you will find posts with all the official links and info on how and when to book.
Be sure to filter your search by Type and Date
Here is a search for "Colosseum tickets" all threes from past 6 months
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=6m&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Colosseum+tickets&utf8=✓
We've not used city passes in Italy but have researched them for the cities you listed. We did a city pass in London and it was a wash.
We found they tend to be a mixture of a few big sites and several smaller attractions. For you to actually save money, you have to cram the day with the attractions included. If there's some not part of the deal that you want to see, that limits the time to take advantage of the pass.
I suggest you lay out your itinerary and see if any of the passes closely match. Then calculate the admission prices vs the pass prices. We used Walks of Italy instead of passes and we thought they were well worth the price.
Christine is correct: the Firenzecard doesn't cover the duomo complex. This is the website for passes to that one; you have 3 options:
https://tickets.duomo.firenze.it/en/store#/en/buy?skugroup_id=3006
The Firenzecard might be useful but you have to be realistic about how much ground you can can actually cover in the time that you have. For instance, 3 nights in Florence and Rome will likely only give you 2.5 days of sightseeing time once you subtract the time needed to transfer from the previous city. And as was noted above, some attractions require advance reservations even if using a pass.
For tickets to the Vatican Museums in Rome (not covered by the Roma Pass):
https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en.html
I'm not personally a fan of the Roma Pass as it only allows for one or two 'free' entries (discounts on other attractions are generally small) depending on which pass you buy, and we've never needed public transit enough to make that benefit worthwhile; I just buy a few individual BIT tickets and tuck them away for if we decide to cover considerable distance faster than on foot. It also doesn't cover trips to/from the airports. The pass that for SURE I wouldn't buy is the Omnia pass: that one is notoriously overpriced.
The Firenzecard doesn't cover any public transport but I'd agree with the above that the historic center is compact enough not to need it.
