Rome in 3 days

Colosseum, first slot of the day. The €18 ticket (fee included) is in your name, valid for 24 hours and covers the Forum and the Palatine; inside the Colosseum itself you get a maximum of 75 minutes, so don't plan as if time were unlimited. Entry is at the booked time exactly — not before, not after. The Full Experience ticket (about €24) adds the arena or the underground, but those slots go first.

Forum and Palatine — this is where the hours go, not the Colosseum. Enter from Via di San Gregorio, climb the Palatine first (a view over the whole Forum, shade, benches), then walk down among the temples. Two hours is the minimum; bring water, there are few fountains inside.

Lunch in Monti, the neighbourhood right behind the Forum: Via dei Serpenti and Via del Boschetto, not Via Cavour. Pizza al taglio by weight or a plate of pasta under €15 — the last cheap meal of the day, make it count.

The Capitoline: Michelangelo's square, then the terrace behind the city hall with the best free view over the Forum — the same picture as with a ticket, only from above. If you have one museum in you, the Capitoline Museums are here, with the She-Wolf and the original Marcus Aurelius.

Walk across the Circus Maximus to the Aventine: the Orange Garden for sunset over St Peter's dome, and the Knights of Malta keyhole two steps further. Free, and the best hour of the day.

Down into Testaccio for dinner — the quarter where Roman cooking was born (the old slaughterhouse was here) and where trattorias don't do picture menus. Metro B from Piramide takes you back.

Vatican Museums, first slot. €20 plus a €5 online fee — and the fee is worth it, because the walk-up queue runs an hour or more. Open Mon–Sat 8–20 (last entry 18), closed Sundays except the last Sunday of the month, when entry is free 9–14 and the queue wraps around the wall.

Head straight for the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel before it fills. Everything else — the Pio-Clementino, the map gallery, the tapestries — can wait for the way back, when crowds no longer matter. No photos and no talking in the chapel; they actually enforce it.

Leave the Sistine by the left-hand exit, the group passage, straight into St Peter's Basilica — when it is open it saves forty minutes of walking and a second security line. The basilica is free. The dome: €10 by stairs (551 steps) or €15 by lift to the terrace and then 320 steps. On Wednesday mornings the papal audience closes the basilica until about 12:30 — if your Vatican day is a Wednesday, swap days.

Lunch in Prati, behind the Museums: Via Cola di Rienzo and its side streets are for locals, with prices a third lower than on Borgo Pio next to the Vatican.

Castel Sant'Angelo from outside and across the bridge with Bernini's angels, then along the river to Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori. No tickets: Navona with the Four Rivers fountain, Sant'Agnese, then the lanes around Via del Governo Vecchio.

Trastevere over Ponte Sisto. Santa Maria in Trastevere first for the mosaics (free, open until 21), then dinner in the streets behind the square, away from Piazza Trilussa where prices are tourist prices.

Pantheon at opening. Since 1 July 2026 entry is €7 (it was €5), under-18s go free; open 9–19. At nine the beam of sun through the oculus still sits high on the dome and you share the room with twenty people, not two hundred.

Sant'Ignazio with its fake dome (free), then the Trevi Fountain. Since February 2026 the steps down to the basin cost €2; the square and the view from above are still free. Toss the coin from the railing, same magic.

The Spanish Steps — climb them, don't sit on them (there is a fine). From the top through Villa Borghese, the park, to the gallery: a 25-minute walk in the shade.

Borghese Gallery, the 13:00 slot. €16 plus a compulsory €2 booking fee; entries are hourly, the visit is exactly two hours, 180 people per slot — which is why it never feels crowded. Bernini (Apollo and Daphne, the Rape of Proserpina) and six Caravaggios. Open Tue–Sun 9–19, closed Mondays.

The Pincio terrace above Piazza del Popolo, then down Via del Corso or, smarter, Via Margutta and Via del Babuino — same direction, without the chain stores.

Last evening: either Monti with a glass of wine on Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, or the Gianicolo — the hill above Trastevere with a view over the whole city that most visitors never get to. Bus 115 or 870 up, walk down.