We are planning on visiting the Colosseum/Roman Forum/Palatine Hill on our first day and Vatican Museums/St. Peter's Basilica/Sistine Chapel on day two in May 2025. I am in the process of figuring out on when to purchase each ticket and what tickets to purchase in general. In addition, should I purchase the individual tickets for each site or should I purchase guided tours? If you believe the guided tours are the way to go, can you please provide links to suggestions? Thank you!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
17197 posts
Hi and welcome to the RS forums, Kaitlyn -
Browsing threads from the latest 6 months about tours (or not) of the Vatican Museums/St Pete's is a good place to start. People who've booked tours will make mention of who they used and if they were pleased with them or not:
I'd recommend a tour which specifies that they include the basilica; not all of them do. Also, tours which normally include the church can't access it on Wednesdays, and the museums are closed on Sundays.
Colosseum/Forum/Palatine:
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=6m&filter=Travel+Forum&query=tours%2C+Colosseum&utf8=✓
You will be booking with an outside company - such as The Tour Guy, Walks of Italy or Through Eternity - as the park itself doesn't offer a combo tour of the 3 sites. Please don't use a 3rd party re-seller such as Get Your Guide or Viator as they don't conduct tours themselves so you have to dig into the info to see who actually does, and then find reviews.
By intending to visit the Colosseum on Day 1, I'm hoping you don't mean the day you arrive in Rome by air, correct? That's not advised for a number of reasons.
Posted by
Atlanta, GA area (USA)
293 posts
Welcome to the forum! We were in Rome last month and visited all of those places. We had to take a guided tour of the Vatican Museum because the regular timed entry tickets were sold out but otherwise we just followed the written tours in Rick’s guidebook - we much prefer not having a guide lead us around.
So if you prefer being on your on or using an audio guide start checking the sites now to buy tickets. For the Colosseum stuff it’s complicated - the tickets go on sale at 9:00 AM or so local time an exact number of days in advance, they sell out within minutes, and you have to pound away with multiple devices to try and get them. If you search this forum there’s a post that describes exactly what to do. I decided not to stay up all night trying to get them and instead just bought an audio guide tour by c.i.s. Tours through GetYourGuide. The “tour” was just individual tickets and a link to an audio guide app. It was more expensive but it let me get a good night’s sleep! The drawback to the individual tickets is you don’t get to visit the attic or basement or other special parts of the Colosseum so if you want to visit them you’ll need a guided tour.
For the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel you should be able to get individual tickets if you start checking now. But if you can’t you could always buy a guided tour and then go off on your on once you get inside. And of course, if you like guided tours then definitely book them - I’m sure others on this forum will recommend specific tour companies and guides.
Finally, St. Peter’s is free to enter, no advance ticket needed, you just wait in the security line until you get in then follow a written or audio guide. The big advantage to a guided tour is to take one that starts in the Vatican Museum and then uses the private exit/entrance to go from the Sistine Chapel into St. Peter’s without walking all the way back around. We went to St. Peter’s in the morning - it was January so the security wait was only an hour vs. the normal hour and a half - then ate lunch and entered the Vatican Museum at 3:30. It was crowded but we dealt with it. To minimize crowds you would get to St. Peter’s early and get in line before it opens and then stay in the museum until closing time.
Good luck with the trip!
Posted by
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
5021 posts
We used Through Eternity Tours which is the best group for company I've used anywhere in Europe. They also offer private tours.
https://www.througheternity.com/
Like your plan, we did the two tours on back to back days. I'm so glad we took a tour of both. Without it, the Forum and Palatine Hill would have just been a pile of rubble but the guide was able to bring the everyday life of ancient Rome to life for us. Same with the Vatican tour. I have little interest in art but thanks to the guide I may have enjoyed the Vatican more than the Forum.
Posted by
130 posts
Before you book anything, I HIGHLY recommend watching Elyssa Bernard’s YouTube videos on Romewise YouTube. She is an American who has lived in Rome for 20+ years and has a video exclusively devoted to Colosseum tickets, which one gets you what access, costs, what the different areas of the Colosseum look like, and more. https://youtu.be/nlZQCLZvT04?feature=shared
She has a separate video on the Vatican Museums/St. Peter’s and she discusses the benefits of doing it with a tour or doing it on your own. (She does not do tours, she makes her money from her YouTube advertisers).