Rome--too late for sites reservations?

For the Scavi tour, all you can do is try. Email them and see what they say. The more flexible you are with time and day, the better chance you will have. Vatican Museums: See what's available for your date. A cursory check of tours for Setp shows some availability. There are plenty of skip the line tickets for individuals. I can, however, highly recommend http://www.walksofitaly.com/ for the Pristine Sistine Tour. Borghese: Again, all you can do is try. If you cannot get tickets on your own, contact a tour operator. Google Borghese Tours and you'll find a ton of them. Good luck!

"professionally-led tours of these sites." AFAIK there are no outside/non-Vatican tour operators for the Vatican Scavi "underground crypts" tour. The only way to get that tour is through the Vatican website, click here to go to that site.

If you have trouble getting a Borghese reservation, call your hotel and ask if they can do it for you. Some Italian sites have limited on-line bookings, but can be wide open for phone bookings.

You can book a tour directly through the vatican website. It looks like the only date not available is the 27th. It would cost 31 euros per person. This tour is very good and covers all the main rooms of the museums. It includes a really great discussion on the artwork of the Sistine chapel. No need to book an expensive private tour unless you want to spend the money. As for the Borghese gallery, they usually only book about 60 days out anyway so you should just give it a try. For the scavi tour, you might be out of luck but give it a try. You never know when a slot may open up. http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?weblang=en&do http://www.ticketeria.it/ticketeria/borghese-regolamento-eng.asp Donna

As far as the Borghese is concerned, they have plenty of tickets available for tomorrow and that seems to be the case all the way out through September 30. Getting tickets does not appear to be a problem in September.