Is Rome worth a visit? How long are the waiting lines for the Colosseum in winter? Is Rome too touristy? Read all our answers, tips and experiences right here!
What a busy two days we’ve had in Rome! We visited this big city while roaming Italy with our campervan in November, so we had to give Rome a look. We parked our van at a campsite just outside the city, so we could give Alaska a nice outside space in the shade.
Colosseum and Forum Romano tickets
We took the metro to the centre (took a bit longer because there was a strike), changed metro, and we stepped right out at the Colosseum. I read somewhere to walk a bit further to the Forum Romano ticket centre to skip the long line at the Colosseum ticket centre, and that worked! There were around 5 people ahead of us in line, so we waited 5 minutes and then walked back to the Colosseum for 5 minutes. Also at the security it was not crowded at all: it was around 11AM but we still got in the Colosseum within 10 minutes.
Colosseum entrance
The outside of the Colosseum is impressive, although there are a lot of maintenance/building/gates/etc around it, so a pretty picture of the entire thing was impossible. Within the Colosseum it was very busy. There were a lot of tour guides with big groups (of course we tried to linger around a Dutch tour guide). We didn’t pay for the special entrances, so we couldn’t go underground or something. We don’t really think the special entrances would be worth it, although an underground tour might be worth the extra money. The normal entrance was still very majestic!
After that we walked back to the Forum Romano to pay it a visit (included in every Colosseum ticket). Woah, what a big place that is! It’s just a big field of old ruins, pillars, sculptures, religious buildings, market places, and what not. It’s recommended to spend 2/3 hours here, so you have the time to wander around in ancient Rome and be mesmerised. Together with the Palestine Hill (also included), we liked it better than the Colosseum itself!
Trevi Fountain
We took one last metro to eat a flower-shaped ice cream and to see the Trevi Fountain, which was stunning, but hard to see through all the crowds. I have better photos, but this was more realistic. It was gorgeous, but with all the crowds not really worth the trouble.
That was already the end of day 1, because our feet hurt and we had to get back to Alaska.
Day 2: Vatican City
Day 2 was an even quicker visit to the Vatican City (which adds a whole new country to our list). We stood in a long line all over the piazza for the St. Peter’s Basilica, but to our surprise it didn’t take longer than half an hour. It helped that the architecture outside is beautiful to look at, no matter where you looked.
The inside of the Basilisk was gorgeous obviously, with many sculptures, writings and paintings. Jonathan pretended to be our own tour guide and he googled some of the interesting facts. The necropolis underneath was also worthy of a visit. Not a lot of tourists go there, so we had it almost to ourselves! A real tip! The staircase down is on the left side, behind a big pillar.
Post a card from Vatican City
After a bunch of photos we headed to the post-office to get Vatican stamps and to post some cards: the Vatican has a post system that works so much better than the Italian postal system that Italians from Rome go to Vatican City for sending out the important stuff! We sent ourselves a card too, just for the stamps.
That was Rome already! We haven’t seen half of this beautiful city, although that would take more than a week with all the crowds everywhere. It’s also not a cheap city, because of all the expensive hot spots. Maybe we’ll visit again, but then in a hotel in the city centre and without a dog to worry about.
We can’t decide if we liked Siena or Rome better, but we’re happy we can check Rome off our list.
Have you ever been to Rome (or planning to)?
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