Rome Attractions

Type
All types Activity Bridge Building Castle Cemetery Church City park Famous person site Famous wonder Fountain Garden Historic place Hotel Mausoleum Monument Museum Nature Neighborhood Palace Roman Ruins Sacred place Site complex Square/plazza Store Street/avenue Temple
Access: Open to visitors
All Open to visitors Partial access Reservation required No public access
Price
All Free to visit From low to high From high to low

Rome’s attractions fall into three categories that need different planning.

The ticketed archaeology — the Colosseum, Forum and Palatine on a joint ticket, the Baths of Caracalla, the Capitoline Museums — needs a timed slot booked days ahead in season.

The Vatican operates separately as a foreign state: the Museums are ticketed and heavily oversubscribed, Saint Peter’s is free with a security queue, and both enforce a dress code covering shoulders and knees.

And the free city, which is most of it: the Pantheon, the churches with their Caravaggios and Berninis, the fountains, the Spanish Steps, the Appian Way and the views from the Janiculum and the Aventine keyhole.

Three sights a day is the honest maximum. Rome is walkable but the distances add up and the heat in summer is punishing.