Rome tour recommendations

The link you've posted is the official site for the Vatican museums. You can use that site to book entry tickets or tours to the museums and/or basilica.

For the colosseum/forum/palatine hill you can book entry tickets through the official website. You can also book a tour of the colosseum for an additional 5 euros but you need to call to book that.

http://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm

I would avoid the HO/HO buses in Rome. They are not good, overcrowded and cannot get close to most sites because of the pedestrian only zones. Walking is the best way to see the city.

I wouldn't try to visit the colosseum area and the Vatican area on the same day. Do one per day and add some smaller sites to those days. These are both very large sites and require a lot of time.

donna

My family was in Rome last month. Because we have teenagers we opted for private tour of the Vatican and a small group tour of the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine Hill. Turned out we were the only ones in the small group so that was private too. I would think you could get all you need for the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine Hill from the Rick Steves guide book and audio tour though if you want to save money. The Vatican I would def. recommend a tour. It is so crowded that having someone point out the highlights, answer questions and help skip the lines is worth it. The Vatican tour guide was Valeria with Caesar Tours. You can email Sara to coordinate, [email protected]. http://www.caesartours.com/. The Colosseum we did a skip the line tour with Raphael Tours & Events. I found both companies easy to work with and we did not encounter any difficulties from purchasing the tours to meeting the guides.

If you have kids https://rometourswithkids.com is a good company to work with. Have fun! Carol

Echoing Donna's advice to skip the hoho buses in Rome. While they do work well in some other cities, that isn't one of them, and they've seen pretty bad reviews for quite some time. Common complaints are dirty vehicles with broken audio, surly operators, buses not showing up or repeatedly passing stops because they're too full, or getting so hung up in traffic that it can be faster to walk between certain attractions.

Rome is a great city to walk, and you'll see/experience much more hoofing old, narrow streets where buses can't go.

We did a private tour guide. We contacted her (Sara Magister, on Google) prior to our trip and told her what we wanted. We did a Ancient, Medieval, Christianity, Art and Architecture tour and she hit the mark perfectly. We spent two days on tour and feel like we saw the important things to see covering our desired topics. We learned so much from her it was incredible. I would recommend a private guide.

Thanks for the replies and recommendations.
I've been reading about different "skip the line" options. Do they really work? Some people said they stood in line anyway.
It's just my mom and I, and we are not big "art and museum" people--just want to see the main famous sites, architecture and frescoes and hear the stories about the places and people.

I don't know what kind of schedule you like to keep while traveling, but to maximize your single full day in Rome, I and many others on this forum have enjoyed Walks of Italy "Pristine Sistine" Tour. The guide and tour group, up to 12 I think, meet up early and enter the Vatican Museum at about 8 am, before the general public. You are in the Sistine Chapel with very few other people, before it gets crowded like a sardine can, see parts of the Vatican Museum, then move directly into St. Peter's Basilica. You finish by noon or so, leaving time for a relaxing lunch break or some rest, then another major site in the mid-to-late afternoon into the evening. I believe Walks of Italy still offers a 10% discount to Rick Steves readers.

Larry, how do you get the Walks of Italy discount as a Rick Steves reader?

I tried tonight to book a tour thru the Vatican Museum site noted above and got all the way to the payment submission but kept getting error message that the payment didn't go thru and try again. I tried numerous times and with 2 different Visa cards, but same message each time. Has anyone had this problem? There doesn't seem to be a "help line."