Museum Hopper

My last post from our vacation this summer (only took me a quarter to finish!) We booked a visit to St. Peter's Basilica crypt.  We booked the crypt very early in the process and worked the rest of the day around it.   The tickets are booked on this website .  They group according to language and the groups are quite small.  They cap visitors to 250 people per day.  Ours was "large" at 14 people.   The tickets were 12 EUR.  No children under 15.  You must wear church appropriate clothing.  No photos allowed. You need to be at the Excavation office ten minutes early, which really means arriving about 10-15 minutes before that.  We had to go through two additional security checkpoints before we even got to the office.  We were luck enough that our guide was willing to let us still join the tour.   The first portion of the tour is focused on the Roman grave site that St. Peter's is built on top of.  The...

After we were in St.  Peter’s Basilica, we ran over to the Vatican Museum .  While you may think Vatican City isn’t that big, it is about a 15-18 minute walk to the entrance of the Vatican museum.  We did buy tickets in advance.  It guaranteed us entrance without having to wait in line.  We bought tickets for right at opening since we had the crypt tour tickets for 11:30 AM.  What a mass of people.  All of the tours seem to get there right at 9 AM too.  We did push our way towards the front, which was allowed, but getting through the museum was crazy.  If I were to do it over again, I would have gotten them for after opening e.g., 10 AM or something like that.  While still a long queue if you had not pre-bought tickets, it seemed like the lobby was at least under control when we left. I knew we did not have a ton of time to dawdle in the museum even though we had about two hours in the  museum.  It sure did take a lon...

We planned a pretty elaborate day around Vatican City .  We arrived at St. Peter's Basilica promptly at 8 AM -- we should have considered arriving even a little earlier.  We did not have much of a line though (it was a Monday).  The basilica is free to get into, but does require a security screen.  Also, it is best to have covered shoulders.   As you arrive, it is hard to understand the scale of the basilica.   View from the square View from the back -- you cannot even see the dome from front Jason had never been in it before.  Inside their are a number of vignettes to consider and look at.  Hard to know where to start.  Getting into the Basilica so early meant that a few of the naves were still closed for mass.   Michelangelo's Pieta I am not going to belabor this particular visit -- nothing I can say is going to do this justice!  Must visit while in Rome. Times visited: 3 Time in Basili...

After we visited the Colosseum , we headed over to The Forum .  Honestly, I did not really know what we were walking into.  Our ticket was included in our Colosseum ticket.  I do not know if that is the typical way it works. I will also note that it was hotter than heck out.  And the last thing I want to do when it is hot out is wander through rocks absorbing heat.   The Roman Forum is where the major government buildings of ancient Rome were.  It has been called "the most celebrated meeting place in the world and in all of history" (wikipedia).  It was truly the hub of civilization.   It is crazy to think about who has walked through this space like Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Sulla.   The forum would be great to visit with children.  There was limited security, limited lines and lots of space!   The view from the Palatine Hill was beautiful too.  We went up the steps the hill. ...

One of the items I made sure to book in advance was a visit to Colosseum .  We decided to get there early and I booked through tiquets .   I found the ticket situation frustrating/difficult/opaque for a few reasons: It required checking a number of different tourist sites for tickets It seemed like there wasn't an official site for Colosseum -- I couldn't confirm or figure out where the tourist sites were getting the tickets Some of the sites released tickets months in advance; others less than a couple of weeks.  Each site had different times. I basically ended up checking for tickets for every weekend across multiple sites.   That being said, you must book tickets in advance.  The queue was out of control when we left around 10:30 AM.   We arrived awkwardly early since the ticket was not clearly marked e.g., ticket said 8:35, arrive 15 minutes early.  It turned out we got in at 8:50, so 8:35 was early.  The tickets...

I booked a few things in advance for Rome, one of which was the Galleria Borghese .  The museum requires booking a two  hr time slot.   When we went at the end of June, they were booked for the entire upcoming week, so I do recommend booking your slots in advance.   Everyone is ushered in at the same time and then they clear the museum out very promptly.   And for that reason, I would recommend getting there even a bit on the early side, since you do have to go through security to get in, which caused a bit of a queue.   I would want to maximize the time in there.  Since it is relatively small, the art work they had was quite concentrated and strong.  There were audio guides that you could purchase, but we ended up not getting those.  They had some printed "placemats" in each room in English that we both read.  They were comprehensive enough to understand what we needed to look at in every room.  One tour group did have ...