Opinion on tours - Catacombs and Colosseum|Forum

I would check with the catacombs to see if you're required to use their guides. I know some of the catacombs don't allow private guides to do the tours and you end up paying more for a tour you could book yourself. I know for the Priscilla catacombs you can get tours there and the entry fee is only 8 euros per adult.

At the colosseum I would just book through their official website. You can take the regular tour for 5 euros or the underground tour for 9 euros. You'll need to purchase an entry ticket but those are only 12 euros per adult.

Donna

If I were going to choose one to do one my own, I would go to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus out on the Appian Way.. http://www.catacombe.roma.it/en/index.php Their website has details on how to get there and opening hours. They provide guided tours very inexpensively. Groups form often by language, and the guides are interesting and often very passionate. (This particular catacombs was actually recommended by a Walks of Italy guide.)

If there is one place that a good guide can turn a field of rubble into an exciting sight, it's the Forum. I've done this one at least half a dozen times -- with university guides, private guides, on my own with guidebooks -- with wildly varying results. My best experience ever was with Walks of Italy with their guide Angela on the new tour covering the Forum, the Colosseum, and Augustus Caesar's newly opened palace. It was a long afternoon packed with information but so worth it.

@Ruth Was that a private tour with Angela or a group tour? I agree that we don't particularly need a tour for the Colosseum but rather The Forum as you say.

It was a group tour with Walks of Italy, but we were the only four.

I prefer the Catacombs of Priscilla (use their guides), in the northern part of Roma, which you can combine with a visit to Santa Costanza, a beautiful church on Via Nomentana.

I took a Walks of Italy tour in October that included both the Catacombs of Priscilla and the San Clemente church, and it was excellent. I think it was called Underground Rome or something similar. Small group, and we rode a van between the sites. I do feel that now that I have seen one catacomb(s?), I don't need to see any others. Walks of Italy also has tours of the Roman Forum and House of Augustus that include the Colosseum. I am a fan and think their guides are very good at bringing the ruins to life.
Cynthia