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Help with itinerary for 5 day pre cruise trip to Rome

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I would love to get some feedback on our tentative itinerary. We will be staying 6 nights/ 5days before we join the rest of our extended family on a 7 day cruise of the Greek Isles.

I'll be traveling with my husband, 19year old son( who has been to Rome before, so probably will not wake up early for any of the sites!), 14 year old son.

We'll be there in August, so I'm planning on doing most of our sightseeing in the evenings, my husband and I will probably get up very early on our own, but I'm not planning on dragging the boys with us. We'll be staying in an apartment in the pantheon area, so fairly central so that we can go back and rest during the hot afternoons.

Day 1- our flight lands at 4:30pm, planning on catching the terra vision bus or train in or we might do a taxi, depending upon how tired we are. Nothing planned for this evening except a walk after dinner.

Day 2- Early morning visit to St Peter's( this will just be my husband and myself, as we'll have a chance to see the Basillica together as a family later on, after our scavi tour.)

Breakfast, and then Rick's heart of Rome walk.
Evening- food tour with gourmetally( Jewish ghetto, campo di fiori and trastevere)

Day -3 Early entry tickets to Sistine Chapel with City Wonders, these were the l'est expensive tickets that I could find $64/person, they let you in at 8 am, take you directly to the Sistine Chapel, then you're on your own. I though this was ideal, as I would probably stay back to tour the Vatican Museums on my own and my husband and the boys could leave before the crowds get super crazy

Is this a better option or would the Friday night openings be better as far as crowds are concerned? We would rather not do guided tours because of the expense involved.

Day 4 The colosseum- hoping to get the underground tour tickets through Coop culture or the night tours.

Day 5- Roman forum/palatine hill

Day 6- Borgheses gallery ( just me!) and Scavi tour in the afternoon for all of us. Does anyone know how long it lasts? We're hoping to climb St Peters dome afterwards.

Day 7- Domus Aurea, is this worth it? Not sure as we'll have to head for the port directly afterwards.

Thanks so much for your help
Nira

Posted by
11240 posts

The Colosseum and Forum are adjacent each other. Really should be able to do both on the same day.

If you combine those into one day, you would have a day to do Ostia Antica, which would be a nice change of pace.

Why not do the St Peter Dome climb on day 3 while you are already there?

Posted by
312 posts

For the most part this sounds like a sane and do-able plan.

I agree about combining Forum/Palatine/Colosseum on one day. I did the evening tour of the Colosseum and it was a delight. Cooler temperatures and a nearly empty Colosseum.

If memory serves, the Scavi tour lasted 75-90 minutes. Honestly, I was somewhat disappointed. They rushed us past all sorts of interesting-looking ancient tomb paintings (I suppose because the interred were all pagans) and held forth at great length about why they think they know where St. Peter's tomb is (and you don't really see it, by the way).

For me, Domus Aurea was totally worth it, but I'm a Roman history buff so YMMV. The VR presentation in the middle of it was amazing.

Posted by
62 posts

Thanks for your suggestions, I thought it would be too much to do both the colosseum and the forum, palatine hill on the same day, because of the heat. But if I did, I'd have an extra day, and I was thinking of a day trip to Orvieto. It looks amazing. I think I'd rather do that than Ostea Antica, because we would have see a lot of ruins already, and we'll be seeing more on our cruise( Acropolis, Olympia ).

Posted by
7688 posts

Try to fit in the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Trajan's Column and Market. Also, there are some other very historic churches in Rome, one with the original doors from the Roman Senate. Another church with the original steps from Jerusalem that Christ walked.

The Pantheon is one of the few buildings still virtually intact from Ancient Rome. It has a dome that at the time was a huge advance in architecture.

The Spanish Steps is a great shopping area.

Posted by
4896 posts

Since you are staying in an apartment in the area, I assume you will check out the Pantheon itself as well as Piazza Navona. They definitely should not be missed

Posted by
27217 posts

Orvieto is lovely and worth a day for sure. It's a nice change from monumental Rome. Orvieto may be a bit less busy if you can go there on a weekday rather than a weekend. It's my impression that the town is quite popular with Italians driving there for a day or two. As is typical, the bulk of the visitors will be encountered along the logical path between the top of the funicular and the area around the Duomo. Walk perpendidular to that path for a block or two and you'll probably be alone.

If you get there early and are travelers who like to visit "sights" rather than just wandering around and soaking in the atmosphere, the tourist card might pay off for you. You can buy it at the tourist office very near the train station, which is a smart move because (at least as of 2015) it covers a round-trip on the funicular you'll need to use to get to the historic district.

In any case, don't skip the Duomo, and pay the modest entry fee to see the incredible chapel. There are also a couple of good museums, and I think there are two separate walking tours offered. There really is a lot to do in Orvieto. Plus some good restaurants.

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