What to buy in advanced for our Italy trip

We loved the Borghese Gallery in Rome. You must buy advanced tickets, you have a time slot to enter and exit. It was our favorite of all time!

The museum is on two stories and everyone begins on the bottom floor, so it was crowded. After awhile the crowds all left and we were alone looking at magnificent sculptors. Little did we know there was a second story, so we missed the whole top floor! But, we heard later that it was mostly paintings and we enjoyed the sculptors so much we were so happy we had them to ourselves. If you go, you might want to head upstairs first and save the bottom floor to tour last.

The Vatican is best done with a tour to ensure you see the highlights. My favorite is Walks of Italy and their Pristine Sistine tour. Not cheap, but memorable and a good value for the money. They take a group of only 12 people in very early. Terrific experience.

In Florence, the Accademia and Uffizi can and should be pre-booked. We really liked the Palazzo Vecchio, too. Check the websites to determine closures on May 1.

Hello,

I would book museum tickets in advance, especially Rome/Vatican City and Florence. Last time I was there, I booked about 5 months in advance. The most difficult(for me) in Italy was getting tickets to the Last Supper in Milan and the Borghese Gallery in Rome.

Here's something that was posted: https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/making-museum-reservations-in-florence.

Hope this helps, enjoy your travels.

Hi -
For Rome: there are really only three attractions you should purchase advance tickets for, and one of these can often be gotten around.

Galleria Borghese: this is, IMHO, the best art museum in Rome, and reservations for a 2-hour time slot are mandatory. You can make those here:

http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/einfo.htm

Vatican Museums: always a busy, busy place. Pre-purchase tickets here, and you'll need to choose a specific day/time:
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html

If you reserve a 3-hour tour of BOTH the museums and the basilica, you'll eliminate the need to stand in a separate security line for St. Peters as tours go directly from the Sistine (in the museums) into the church.

http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?action=booking&codiceTipoVisita=74&step=2

Colosseum +Forum + Palatine:
One ticket covers all three of these archeological sites but the Colosseum's is the ticket queue you want to avoid. A lot of people get around that - as we did - by purchasing our tickets at the Palatine, where lines are shortest. Once you have them, you use them to enter all three. You may also order them online here:

http://www.coopculture.it/en/the-colosseum.cfm

Florence: the only two with consistently long ticket queues are the Uffizi and Accademia. Tickets can be pre-ordered here:

https://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/en/musei/index.php?m=accademia
https://www.polomuseale.firenze.it/en/musei/?m=uffizi

In Venice, you will probably want to visit the Doge's Palace and might consider buying tickets on-line in advance: http://palazzoducale.visitmuve.it/en/home/
The Secret Intinerary guided visit of the palace is very interesting: http://palazzoducale.visitmuve.it/en/the-museum/layout-and-collections/secret-itineraries/

Venice - As Susan says, you must booked the Secret Itineraries Tour in advance if you want to take it. There are only a couple each day, the tour is limited to a small number, so they sell out. You don't have to buy general tickets to the Doge's Palace in advance. If you buy the tour, there's a separate window to pick up the tickets and you get your entry ticket at the same time. The tour begins inside, so you can wander as much as you like before the tour starts. The tour goes to places that are not otherwise accessible. If you don't take the tour, you can pick up the tickets at the Correr Museum at the other end of the Piazza - and it's well worth visiting that museum too. Not sure if there are advance tickets for the Basilica. The best time to visit is 11.30-12.30 when the mosaics are floodlit.

Rome - As the other Susan said, at the Borghese, most people start on the first floor. Go directly to the second floor. By the time you're ready to visit the first floor, it will be pretty empty. You must arrive at least 30 minutes (an hour is good) before the tour to pick up your tickets. If you aren't there in time, they will consider them forfeit and sell them to someone else. Then you need time to check bags. You may want to rent the audio guide. It's good to line up early so you're in the front of the line, giving you a few minutes more in the galleries. Also, there are toilets in the galleries, but you don't want to waste time . . . use the toilets at the entrance. The best days (or at least so I'm told) to visit the Vatican museums are Thursday and Friday. Saturdays are generally more crowded (weekend), and Mondays are very crowded since they're closed on Sunday and many other museums in Rome are closed on Monday. Wednesdays there is often a papal audience in the morning, so the museums get a larger number of visitors when it ends. But expect it to be pretty crowded whenever you go.

I join Laurel in recommending Walks of Italy. As she said, they aren't cheap, but I was impressed by their organization and the knowledge of the guides. If we had more time, we would have taken the early Vatican tour (you go before it opens for the general public) and the VIP tour of the Coliseum.

We did take two half day tours of Florence. We walked right into the Accademia and the Uffizi. There were only 6 of us on the Uffizi tour and the guide didn't even use the radio set.

We booked our Walks of Italy tours before we left. They send you a receipt that includes detailed instructions regarding the meeting time and place. When we got there, they just asked us our name, pulled us up on their iPad to confirm, then gave us our receivers and headphones. Our guides stayed after the tour to answer questions and suggest other sites and places to eat.

BTW, if you enjoy the tour, please tip the guide. We gave our guides 3 Euro each. Very few tipped and our gratuity was appreciated.

WRT Venice - do not bother purchasing vaporetto passes ahead of time. In fact, unless you are mobility-challenged, the main vaporetto routes are SO busy, especially in front of the train station, that walking is easier/faster. More convenience, you can purchase your airport transfer online ahead of time but I would forgo any of the Venice Pass products. Also, I did not find the water-bus (alilaguna) from Marco Polo to the lagoon nearly as entertaining as I thought I would...

Also in Venice, pre-book your visit to San Marco to avoid standing in line to get a entrance time. Entry is free but there is a nominal "convenience fee" for pre-reserving on line. Hint - make your reservation for between 1130 and 1230 as the interior flood-lights are on during this this hour.

In Florence, definitely pre-purchase your entrance to the museums. I can't vouch for the quality of the audio tours because I've always taken guided tours of the Accademia and Uffizi.

WRT Rome, I would recommend a guided tour of the Vatican. Just keep in mind that the Vatican Museum/St Peters is a zoo and you will feel like a sardine on a conveyor belt...

If you are planning on taking guided tours, they all operate with radios/earbuds for the guide's commentary. If you have problems with earbuds (hearing aids, etc.), take you own set of over the ear headphones, There are several brands offering nice (compact) folding over the ear headphones great for travel.

One of the best things we did in Rome was the "Eating Italy" food tour (www.eatingitaly.com) which was held in the Trastevere neighborhood, which is a great way to have a walking tour while eating! In Florence we used "walk about Florence" tour company for an all day tour of Tuscany which included lunch at an organic farm, we also had two days and am glad we used one for this fabulous tour.

I also highly recommend Walks of Italy for the Colloseum tour and the Vatican. With only 3 days you really get a lot of bang for your buck, but book early..they sell out fast, but because of the Jubilee they may sell out even faster due to their popularity and wonderful schedules.

In Florence make sure to eat at the Florentine Steak house that Rick recommends, you can make reservations (a must) on Trip advisor.

We were in Florence this past May on the first. First of all, we booked the two Walks of Italy tours that can be combined for a day tour, and saw most of the major sites with amazing guides and no lines on the day before the 1st--April 30th. On that night, April 30th, there was a fun evening festival called "White Nights" with bands set up in the streets all over the city. You could walk around the city and listen to various bands for free. Our tour guide told us to get out and enjoy it--don't be like typical tourists who turn in early and miss the fun night activities.
On May 1, we found many things open: the Boboli Gardens, but not the palace, the Medici Palace, and another unexpected pleasure, a May Day parade through the streets of the city. Our hotel was able to give us a list of the things that were open.
We stopped for lunch at a small place that RS recommended, Le Volpe I L'Uva, somewhat near the Boboli, that was wonderful, if a bit tricky to find.

I just posted a topic about Walks of Italy offering 20% off a diff tour each day until Feb 6 - for any dates in 2016. Looks like they will also be offering some deals on tours in Venice, Florence and Vatican City in the coming days. Today's deal is the VIP Colosseum tour in Rome...but the deal ends tonight.

I get emails from them, but you can check out their facebook, twitter or instagram to see the daily deal and get the code...

We used Walks of Italy for the Vatican after hours tour...crowded still, but nice