Should we buy advance tickets for these sites or not?

Domus Aurea

Hello Jeff, I can answer some of these:

Florence:
Duomo with Baptistry and Duomo museum (and Santa Reparata) - Yes. This is three day ticket all in one and only has a specific time if you want to climb the dome itself: https://operaduomofirenze.skiperformance.com/it/negozio#/it/acquista?bookable_y_n_a=a
(Duomo museum is awesome BTW)

Palazzo Pitti and Boboli gardens - in April I would say probably
If you're going to see the Uffizi and are willing to set a timed ticket for that you can add a 5-day one-time use anytime ticket for the Pitti and Boboli using the PassePartout 5 Days ticket

Rome:
Circus Maximus is mostly just an open field. When I was there I saw people doing their daily jog on it. There is a new archaeological area" for the Circus Maximus that requires tickets. (They say pre-booking the 5e is recommended but I don't know if this is true.)

Especially when you can buy tickets with a 3 or 5 day window of when you can use them I would recommend it. If nothing else it saves you the time of waiting in line to buy tickets.

Have a great trip,
=Tod

I visited the Domus Aurea for the first time in October. Be sure to monitor the official ticketing website and be ready to grab the date/time you want as soon as it comes up. You can only enter on a guided tour (and after you are inside you'll see why - it's quite the maze in there!). It's only open Friday/Saturday/Sunday as on the weekdays it's an active archeological dig.

This is the official ticketing site:

https://ecm.coopculture.it/index.php?option=com_snapp&view=products&snappTemplate=template3&catalogid=DE4359A9-1EB0-7688-55DD-017A1BBB52B3&lang=en

***I just went into the English tour and the tickets are only up for February. Look again on Jan 31 and Feb 1 to get a feel for how far out they are posting tickets, then you can set yourself up for a time frame to start checking frequently.

Capitoline I just bought at the door. There were about 6 people ahead of me and we had to wait a bit as apparently the ticket windows closed for lunch and we had to wait a few minutes for them to get back. Not a big problem.

There is a ticket for the Mouth of Truth? Really?

How many nights are you in each city? I wonder if seeing all of these is even feasible. I’m an obsessive planner, but we travel with teens, so we plan on 1 (maybe 2) big sites per day. After about the 3rd palace/church/museum, they all start to look the same.

I would prioritize your “must sees”. Plan one per day. Don’t try to do big museums back to back.

We walked into Castel San Angelo on a whim and found no delays at all. There were people there sure, but not like at the Vatican. This was a great low key place for us to walk off some jet lag after our overnight flight.

Domus Aurea. They only offer tours Friday through Sunday as far as I can tell and you are definitely going to want to book a slot ahead of time. It looks like you can start doing that about a month out from your dates. We are going at the end of June and even now I check every so often just to be safe.

wow, these are great replies. I appreciate y'all sharing your knowledge and experience on this.

I didn't know if the Mouth of Truth required tickets or not so I included it on the list.

We decided to spend more days in fewer places on this trip rather than going to more locations; our trip includes 8 nights in Rome (one of those days is a guided tour to Pompeii) and 6 nights in Florence (one of those days will probably be a private driver tour to Tuscany).

I've got a planned itinerary and it has some open times on it (including a full unplanned day in Rome) - I plan to fill in open times with some of the locations on my previous post, but that is contingent on whether or not I need to reserve tickets and times in advance. That's the reasoning behind my original question . . .

When we were at the Mouth of Truth in 2019, you can see it from outside the gate for free but it was a few euros to get in the short line for photos standing in front of it . It was worth the few euros and the walk to see it though it is a short stop.

Does anyone have any thoughts regarding the need for advanced reservations for these locations?

Rome
Barberini Palace

Florence
medici chapel
Bargello