albie

Family of 5 going to Rome end of July (yes, I know it will be hot!). Kids are 13/13/14, and we're probably more keen on self-guiding/wandering around than overdoing on the narration. Would love to find "skip the queue" tickets for the Vatican museums/Sistine chapel, and perhaps another guided tour or two.

Suggestions for the Vatican bit, or other tour booking sites? I've seen Headout's page for skip-the-line, but am wary, as in general, they get a lot of iffy reviews.

We have about 3 days in Rome. All suggestions welcome!

sydunipete

I recommend plenty of walking. Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain etc - the classics. Definitely book a tour for the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum is touristy but also one of the must dos.

I suggest Viator for booking tours. I think their prices are reasonably competitive and their app / website is easy to use.

If you can, try to avoid restaurants with multi-lingual menus (or photos of food) - easier said than done, I know.

Porchetta (roast pork rolls) is a local speciality. Speaking of which a day trip to Frascati is recommended, particularly of an evening as it has great views over Rome. The area is known for its Porchetta. This is an old article but may give you some inspiration. missexpatria.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/perfect-lunchtime-trip-from-rome-frascati-italy

BeachRat

Check out the thread Central Italy Trip for a few ideas: Central Italy Trip

Here’s my post on tour groups, and note one of the other recommended small group companies is Context Travel:
“We signed up for small group tours (6 or fewer) of the Vatican (guide: Teo) and the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine with Walks Inside Rome, and the guides were patient, knowledgeable, and outstanding. If you have the opportunity, I strongly recommend you search out a tour company that guarantees small groups, as it gives you a much greater opportunity to interact with the guide and actively tailor the tour to your interests.”

pseudoswede

Is it possible to visit both the top of the dome at St Peter's Basilica, which opens at 8am, and then the Sistine Chapel with early access? My guess is no.

Seems like the logical route is to do the 8am entry into the Sistine Chapel, then to St. Peter's to do the dome climb, then tour the rest of the Vatican at your leisure?

How does one simply buy the elevator tickets for the Basilica dome? Are they timed and does it sell out quickly?

The only days we could do this is on a Monday or Tuesday in mid-June--but preferably Monday.

Edited to add: would it be better to do the Basilica at 8am, do other stuff around the Vatican, then do a 3pm tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel since last entry is at 4pm?

Edited to add #2: I've only found one "early access" tour where you go directly to the Sistine Chapel at 8am (or 8:30am? seems kind of vague when it actually opens). It seems like most other "early access" tours go through the whole museum first before visiting the Chapel. Can anyone recommend an "early access" tour where you visit the Chapel first, then have a guided tour of the rest of the Vatican Museum afterwards?

JMN57

If you're looking for porchetta, go to Ariccia (Frascati is nearby - 20 minutes or so). If you mention Ariccia pretty much anywhere in Italy, they'll immediately say "porchetta" and for a good reason. Porchetta di Ariccia is actually an IGP product (geographically protected) so that it needs to be made in Ariccia to be called "Porchetta di Ariccia" (everywhere else they just say porchetta - occasionally, they will say in the style of...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porchetta

KLouis

The simple mention of the word porchetta has a psychotropic effect on me: I immediately forget what the latest lab results were for cholesterol and triglycerides. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

JMN57

That's what Crestor or Lipitor are for!

mreynolds767

Things definitely could have changed since last I was there...
but how it used to work is if you bought on the official Vatican website a timed entry ticket ; that allowed you to completely skip the insane lines that snake down the streets leading to the enterance.
Also it is best to book the earliest time you can make it, will be much less crowded then.

There is no advantage a guided tour would have in terms of entry, just to explain what you are looking at. Personally prefer my own tour with the audio headset available.

St Peters and the Vatican Museums are 2 different places with their own lines.
I am not sure you fully understand that based on your questions.

There was a way to go through a backdoor after the Sistine Chapel to enter from the Vatican museum into St. Peter's and that is what you want to do.
Go through the entire Vatican first though with a timed ticket to skip that line, before you get to the Sistine Chapel. Once you exit the Vatican Museums I am not sure you would be allowed back in and if you were you would have to wait on whatever line existed.

Then after the Vatican Museums find that back door way into St. Peter's to mostly skip that line.
The line for the elevator & walk to the top of the dome is after you already go through the line to enter St. Peter's and the line is likely never that bad ; I recall only a few minute wait the line to St. Peters can be horrific though (hours), even at first thing in the morning.
So definitely do not try to do the Dome first and then the Vatican museum after or anything other than completely finish the Vatican museum and then go to St. Peter's.

I was there this past summer but only went to St. Peters and up to the dome, skipping the Vatican museum. We showed up at 8 AM and had at least a 2 hour wait to enter St. Peters with the entire piazza filled with the line ; was terrible. Prior visit when we went to the Vatican museum and St. Peter's was a few years back so things may have changed. That prior visit we skipped the dome.

marcopizzaiuolo

Adding my two cents, but the logical flow is To enter the Vatican Museum which naturally ends in the Sistine chapel. From there, as the previous poster said, you should be able to enter the basilica directly. Not sure about the Dome climb as it was not a thing when I was last there, and having done the Florence’s Duomo Dome recently, I would not be keen at all to do a similar experience again😅

pseudoswede

Yes, I'm aware of that they are two separate entities. I know that St. Peter's is technically free (but a fee for the elevator and crypt). There is an outside chance that the passageway between the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's will be closed, but that's a risk we'll take, I suppose. I've also read that you cannot re-enter the Vatican Museums after leaving.

I'm also someone that doesn't mind finding an online audio guide on my phone and using my Bluetooth headset to listen in peace.

Thank you both for your replies. I suppose we'll just go with the flow with an early access tour, go through the whole museum then enter the Sistine Chapel, then go directly into St. Peter's Basilica for the dome climb. I was hoping to do the dome climb first when it's cooler in the morning, but whatever.

Critique my proposed itinerary... (revised 3/31)

Saturday
(arrive by plane around 10am, so in the city with the express train and luggage stored by 11am)
- Trevi Fountain
- Spanish Steps
- Pantheon
- Piazza Navona
- check into Airbnb when possible (located near the Barberini metro station)
- explore all of the other nearby piazzas

Sunday
- Baths of Caracalla
- Circus Maximus
- Colosseum/Roman Forum/Palatine Hills
- ???

Monday
- Vatican City (in the morning)
- lunch
- Castel Sant'Angelo
- explore Trastevere
- ???

Tuesday
- checkout of Airbnb, store bags near Roma Termini
- Borghese Gallery (not sure if the kids would be interested)
- lunch
- National Museum of Rome
- ???
- leave for FCO by 3pm for 5:55pm Schengen flight

I was hoping to try to shuffle everything on Sunday to other days so we could do the Pompeii/Vesuvius/Naples/Almafi Coast day trip, but I think my family would hate me.

PWMTrav

Saturday seems good. You probably won't be in the city with luggage stored by 11 if your plane lands at 10, but noon is a reasonable target. Those sites are all relatively close together, and other than dealing with summer crowds, none are a huge time commitment. If you want something else to do in that area, we took a pasta making class with a guy who lived in the top floor of a building near campo de fiori. I already make fresh pasta often, but my daughter loved it, and it was nice to talk to a local with a family for a bit and meet some other interesting tourists. Happy to dig up that info if you want it.

That's a lot of walking on Sunday. At a decent pace without crowds, it's 4 hours for the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and Roman Forum. Circus Maximus is visible from the top of the Palatine Hill, there's an overlook, if you're not super interested in actually going to it at ground level. Baths of Caracalla probably don't add too much time, other than walking there, any lines. Probably a couple of hours all in. Personally, the 4 hours we spent walking the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and Forum was enough for us in one day. Absolutely hire a guide if you want to cut down the lines you wait in, particularly when it's crowded. For the colosseum you will benefit from someone that knows the drill - we had one and it really helped (and two of us in our family group spoke Italian). Try and go to the colosseum underground - they only sell so many tickets per day, but I felt it was worth it.

On Monday, the Vatican would be enough for me. A few hours in the museums and I'm kinda done by the time we get to the Sistine Chapel - we've done this twice now, with different family members on the trip that hadn't been there before. If you have kids, they're gonna be tired by the time you get to St. Peter's, but it is honestly worth a walk through. Whether you get to walk around Trastevere that day is up to your group's energy! But if you make a separate trip, there's a really great mosaic studio in Trastevere that does a 3-4 hour mosaic making class that I'd highly recommend if you want that info. Another option is the Janiculum hill if you're headed in that direction.

The Tuesday plan seems optimistic. Unless you leave fairly early, I don't see how you'll store your bags, go to both of those places, eat lunch, and get back to Termini by 3. You'll be running around way too much, imho. My suggestion is get up and out at a reasonable time - 10-11am, store your bags, go to the museo nazionale which is close to the train station, spend a couple of hours there, then have lunch somewhere nearby around 1:30. The bigger challenge will be finding a good restaurant in that area - maybe Culinaria (has a good reputation, I havent been there recently).

pseudoswede

Thank you so much for your thoughts. The travel party consists of two parents and three teens (18, 18, and 15). Unfortunately, Miss Swede is allergic to eggs, so I'm guessing any pasta-making class is out.

This trip would our third to sixth days in the European time zone (Miss Swede's boyfriend's first trip overseas), so afternoon naps will probably be required.

Maybe we'll hit the Baths of Caracalla on Sunday morning, taxi it back to the Airbnb for a siesta and lunch, then do a late afternoon tour of the Colosseum. Or maybe replace the Baths with Castel Sant'Angelo instead to provide more time to the Vatican on Monday.

We'll probably skip Borghese. I also read there is a highly-rated deli serving porchetta di Ariccia located near Termini.

We definitely do regret not being able to stay an extra night, but the only days Wizz Air flies FCO-GOT is on Saturdays and Tuesdays.

marcopizzaiuolo

One of the best Neapolitan Pizzeria had recently open an outpost in Rome, in a fairly central location, and I would highly recommend them for one of the meals: 50 Kalò

PWMTrav

Now that would be a solid candidate for lunch before the train ride back to the airport - looks to be close to the museum. I didn't know they opened in Rome. Damn, just missed it.

PWMTrav

This is now more in the territory of how I plan vs how you should, so please ignore it if it doesn't help you -

We usually start with a list of things that we want to do, and it's always more than you could possibly do in a trip. Then we each pick 1-2 things that are the things we (personally) really must do. For each of those, we plan a day around them. As in, for that day, the only thing we intend to do besides lunch and dinner is that one activity. And then, if everyone's up for it, we do something else that day with whoever wants to. This obviously works best if you can plan for that important activity to happen in the morning, so that the afternoon is all optional and whatever you feel like doing. For us, that gets us the best balance of doing things versus tiring ourselves out, but our travel style isn't fast paced. But that process scales a bit - it could be 2 activities planned, and do a third if people feel like it. It does mean that, for instance, I just spent 2 weeks in Rome, and even having been there before, I haven't seen everything. But there's hopefully a next time for that.