The Colosseum with the Roman Forum and Palatine
One Parco archeologico del Colosseo ticket covers all three within its validity window, and starting at the Forum entrance rather than the arena is usually the calmer way in.
Rome in pictures
Rome
Ruins on the way to dinner, free water on every corner
Destinations › Europe › Rome
Rome is a working city with a ruin in the middle of it, not a site you visit. Most of what you will actually remember costs nothing - the churches, the fountains, the walk from the Pantheon to Piazza Navona after dark - while the handful of ticketed things need booking further ahead than you would expect.
Air Canada, ITA Airways and Air Transat all fly YYZ to Rome Fiumicino (FCO) nonstop; figure roughly eight and a half hours eastbound. The train station sits inside the terminal, and the two services are not interchangeable: the Leonardo Express is Trenitalia's nonstop to Roma Termini, while the FL1 regional runs the other way around the city to Trastevere, Ostiense, Tuscolana and Tiburtina. Rome's second airport, Ciampino (CIA), has no station at the terminal at all - you leave it by bus, either direct to Termini or on a shuttle to Ciampino town station. One new thing on arrival: the EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational across the Schengen area since 10 April 2026, so your first entry now includes fingerprint and facial biometric registration at the border. Build in extra time at FCO.
ATAC runs metro lines A, B/B1 and C plus the trams and the buses. The Metromare (the old Roma-Lido) and the Roma-Viterbo line are no longer ATAC's - operations passed to Cotral, with Astral as infrastructure manager. Tickets sit under the Metrebus system: the BIT single, good for 100 minutes, plus the Roma 24H, 48H and 72H passes and the CIS weekly card, sold at tabaccherie, machines and in electronic form. You can also skip tickets entirely and use Tap&Go, ATAC's contactless bank-card system, which covers the whole metro (lines A, B/B1 and C), every ATAC surface vehicle, Roma Tpl buses, and the Cotral-run Roma-Lido and urban Roma-Viterbo stations that have turnstiles. Mastercard, Visa, American Express, JCB, UnionPay, Maestro and V-Pay contactless cards all work, as do NFC phones, watches and wearables.
One Parco archeologico del Colosseo ticket covers all three within its validity window, and starting at the Forum entrance rather than the arena is usually the calmer way in.
Still the best-preserved building of the ancient world and now ticketed rather than free, so buy ahead and go early or late if you want it without a crowd.
Book a timed entry directly with the Vatican; the walk-up queue wraps the wall and the Roma Pass will not help you here.
Cross the river once the day-trippers have thinned out and it turns back into a neighbourhood; the mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere are lit and free to walk in and see.
You walk out of the door and you are already there, which is the entire argument for it. Everything is cobbled, there is no Metro station anywhere in this zone, and the streets around Navona and Campo de' Fiori are loud well past midnight. Excellent for a short trip on foot. Difficult with suitcase wheels, a stroller, or anyone unsteady.
Between the Colosseum and Termini, and the best compromise in the city: a real neighbourhood with people living in it, good eating, and Cavour station on Metro Line B. The streets slope and there are stair-streets in places, and not every Line B station has a lift, so check yours if that matters. Close enough to walk to ancient Rome, far enough to escape the crowds in the evening.
A nineteenth-century grid with wide, flat, properly paved pavements - which sounds dull until you have spent a day on cobbles. Ottaviano and Lepanto on Metro Line A. This is the base to choose if anyone in your group uses a stick, a walker or a wheelchair, or if you are pushing a stroller. You trade atmosphere for being able to move.
The one everyone falls for: ivy, small piazzas, the best concentration of trattorias in Rome. It is across the river with no Metro station, it is all cobbles and narrow pavements, and it is genuinely noisy until late. Wonderful for a certain kind of trip and wrong for almost anyone with mobility limits or an early night in mind. Around Termini is cheaper and better connected but scruffy, and it is a well-known pickpocket ground - stay there for transport, not for pleasure.
Cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana and gricia. They are variations on the same short list of ingredients and every trattoria does them. Testaccio is the traditional home ground, with Trastevere and Monti close behind. If a menu near a major monument offers you fettuccine Alfredo and a photo of the dish, keep walking.
Pizza by the slice, sold by weight and cut with scissors - point at what you want, say how much, eat standing up. It is the correct Roman lunch. Alongside it, supplì: a fried rice ball with mozzarella in the middle. Evening pizza is the other Roman kind, thin and crisp and eaten sitting down.
Around Via del Portico d'Ottavia, a short walk from Largo di Torre Argentina. Carciofi alla giudia - a whole artichoke flattened and deep-fried - plus fried salt cod and fried courgette flowers. The artichokes are seasonal, roughly late winter into spring, and are not worth ordering out of season.
Mercato Testaccio is a modern covered market with produce at one end and street-food counters at the other, and it is where to go if you want one meal that explains Roman food. Mercato Trionfale near the Vatican is huge and genuinely local. Campo de' Fiori still calls itself a market but is now largely souvenirs and overpriced spice tins - go for the square, not the shopping.
Ancient Rome, early. Metro Line B to Colosseo, which puts you at the Colosseum entrance. One combined ticket covers the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine, so do them as a single route rather than three visits. Exit the Forum at the Via dei Fori Imperiali end. There is almost no shade in any of it, which is why you go at opening.
Walk up the Cordonata ramp to the Capitoline and the view over the Forum, then down to Piazza Venezia and into the old centre: Largo di Torre Argentina, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Campo de' Fiori. Flat but relentlessly cobbled, about twenty-five minutes end to end plus stops.
The Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps after dark, when the daytime crush thins out and both are lit. They are a fifteen-minute walk apart through the shopping streets. Barberini or Spagna on Metro Line A takes you home from either.
The Vatican. Metro Line A to Ottaviano, then the Vatican Museums on a pre-booked timed entry, finishing at the Sistine Chapel. St Peter's Basilica has its own separate and often very long security queue - factor it in. Shoulders and knees must be covered for both, no exceptions, and people are turned away at the door for this every single day.
Walk east from St Peter's along the river to Castel Sant'Angelo and cross the statue-lined Ponte Sant'Angelo. From there either carry on into the centre, or head north to Piazza del Popolo and climb up to the Villa Borghese gardens for shade and a sit down. The Borghese Gallery inside the park is timed-entry and must be booked in advance - it does not admit walk-ups.
Trastevere and Testaccio. Tram 8 from Piazza Venezia drops you in Trastevere; see Santa Maria in Trastevere, then wander the lanes before lunch. Afterwards cross the river to Testaccio for the market and the working-class food quarter, and pick up Metro Line B at Piramide to get back.
The Metromare line (the former Roma-Lido railway) runs from Porta San Paolo station, which sits directly alongside Piramide on Metro Line B. Around half an hour, and the site is a short walk from the Ostia Antica stop. It is an entire Roman port town - streets, apartment blocks, baths, a theatre - with a fraction of the crowds of Pompeii and none of the travel. The ground is uneven ancient paving throughout.
Cotral bus from Ponte Mammolo on Metro Line B, or a regional train from Roma Tiburtina, roughly an hour. Villa d'Este is a Renaissance garden of terraces and fountains, which means a lot of steps; Hadrian's Villa is a flat but very large archaeological site, and it sits outside the town so you need onward local transport. Doing both in one day is possible but rushed - pick one if you have older parents with you.
Frecciarossa or Italo high-speed from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale in a bit over an hour, then the Circumvesuviana local line out to Pompeii. It absolutely can be done as a day, and it is a long, hot, tiring one - book the fast train both ways and start early. If the group includes anyone who fades in the afternoon, do Naples on its own and leave Pompeii for another trip.
Be straight with yourself: Rome is the hardest of these three cities for anyone with limited mobility, and no amount of good planning fully fixes it. The problem is the ground. The historic centre is paved in sampietrini - small square basalt blocks, uneven, gapped, and often polished slick. They are punishing for wheelchairs and walkers, they catch stroller wheels, and they are hard work on a bad hip or knee. Pavements are narrow where they exist and frequently absent, so you end up walking in the road alongside scooters. This is not occasional; it is most of the centre. The Metro does not rescue you, because it barely goes where the sights are. Three lines only, and no station at the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain or Trastevere - Barberini and Spagna are the nearest to Trevi and the Spanish Steps and both still leave a walk. Line C is the newest and was built to modern accessibility standards. Lines A and B are older and their lift coverage is patchy and station-specific, with Line A the oldest of the three; lifts across the network also go out of service without much warning. Do not commit to a route that depends on one lift without confirming that station on the day. Newer buses have ramps; older trams do not, and stops are often on cobbles anyway. Heat is the other honest warning. July and August in Rome regularly sit in the mid-to-high thirties, and the Forum, the Colosseum and St Peter's Square have essentially no shade. For an older visitor that is a real health risk, not an inconvenience. Do sights at opening or in the late afternoon, rest in the middle of the day the way Romans do, and use the nasoni street fountains to keep bottles full and wet a hat. What does work: the Vatican Museums have lifts and a marked accessible route, St Peter's Basilica is step-free at ground level, and the Colosseum has lift access to the upper tier. Contact each in advance to arrange the accessible entrance rather than turning up and joining the main queue. Avoid committing to the dome climb at St Peter's - the lift only covers the first stretch and the rest is hundreds of narrow, sloping steps with no way back down except forward. From the GTA the nonstop runs around eight and a half hours; many itineraries connect through a European hub instead, which turns it into a very long day for an older traveller. Whichever you take, write off the arrival day. From Fiumicino, licensed white taxis run to the historic centre on a set flat fare that is posted on the vehicle - confirm you are paying the flat fare before you move, and ignore anyone who approaches you inside the terminal offering a ride.
The euro. Card acceptance is the norm and businesses are required to accept card payments, but small trattorias, market stalls and neighbourhood bars still push cash and some will tell you the machine is broken. Carry cash for markets and small places. Use ATMs inside or attached to actual bank branches - Global Affairs Canada rates the risk of credit card skimming in Italian tourist areas as high, and warns that ATMs and PIN readers can be tampered with.
Not expected, and not a percentage. What you will see on the bill instead is a fixed per-person charge, printed on the menu as pane e coperto or as servizio depending on the place - that is a cover or service charge, not a tip, and it is not optional once it is on the menu. Leaving small change on the table after a good meal is a normal gesture. Nobody is calculating fifteen percent.
230 volts, 50 Hz. Italy uses its own Type L plug - three round pins in a straight line - alongside the standard European Type C, and increasingly Type F. Many modern sockets are bipasso and swallow several plug shapes, but plenty of older ones will not take a French or German adapter. Bring a universal European adapter rather than a single-country one.
Safe, and better than that. The nasoni - the cast-iron street fountains running constantly all over the city, a couple of thousand of them - carry the same drinking water that comes out of household taps. Block the bottom of the spout with your finger and it arcs up out of the hole on top so you can drink from it. Refilling at nasoni is the single most useful thing you can do in a Roman summer.
Italian. English is reliable in hotels, museums and central restaurants and much patchier on buses, in neighbourhood shops and with taxi drivers. Say buongiorno or buonasera when you walk into a shop or a bar - it is expected rather than optional, and skipping it lands badly. Learning permesso for getting past someone on a crowded bus earns disproportionate goodwill.
Global Affairs Canada says pickpocketing and bag snatching occur frequently in Italy, on public transport and at tourist sites, with distraction tactics - a spilled drink, an insistent conversation, offered help. In Rome the well-known hotspots are the Termini concourse and the crowded 64 and 40 buses between Termini and the Vatican. Also common: costumed centurions near the Colosseum and men who tie a bracelet on your wrist, both of whom demand money once you have engaged. Global Affairs advises using only officially licensed taxis from a rank or booked by phone or app - in Rome that means white cars with a TAXI roof sign and a working meter - and never sharing one with a stranger.
April to early June and late September through October are the sweet spots. July and August are genuinely punishing, regularly into the mid-30s Celsius with almost no shade in the Forum, and the city half-empties around Ferragosto on 15 August, when family-run trattorias and shops shut for a week or two with a handwritten sign on the door. November to March is mild, wet in bursts, and the only time you will see the Pantheon without a queue. The 2025 Jubilee closed in January 2026, so pilgrim crowd levels have come back down to normal.
Compare the ways to get there, then build a day-by-day plan.
Air Canada, ITA Airways and Air Transat all fly YYZ to Rome Fiumicino (FCO) nonstop; figure roughly eight and a half hours eastbound. The train station sits inside the terminal, and the two services are not interchangeable: the Leonardo Express is Trenitalia's nonstop to Roma Termini, while the FL1 regional runs the other way around the city to Trastevere, Ostiense, Tuscolana and Tiburtina. Rome's second airport, Ciampino (CIA), has no station at the terminal at all - you leave it by bus, either direct to Termini or on a shuttle to Ciampino town station. One new thing on arrival: the EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational across the Schengen area since 10 April 2026, so your first entry now includes fingerprint and facial biometric registration at the border. Build in extra time at FCO.
ATAC runs metro lines A, B/B1 and C plus the trams and the buses. The Metromare (the old Roma-Lido) and the Roma-Viterbo line are no longer ATAC's - operations passed to Cotral, with Astral as infrastructure manager. Tickets sit under the Metrebus system: the BIT single, good for 100 minutes, plus the Roma 24H, 48H and 72H passes and the CIS weekly card, sold at tabaccherie, machines and in electronic form. You can also skip tickets entirely and use Tap&Go, ATAC's contactless bank-card system, which covers the whole metro (lines A, B/B1 and C), every ATAC surface vehicle, Roma Tpl buses, and the Cotral-run Roma-Lido and urban Roma-Viterbo stations that have turnstiles. Mastercard, Visa, American Express, JCB, UnionPay, Maestro and V-Pay contactless cards all work, as do NFC phones, watches and wearables.
April to early June and late September through October are the sweet spots. July and August are genuinely punishing, regularly into the mid-30s Celsius with almost no shade in the Forum, and the city half-empties around Ferragosto on 15 August, when family-run trattorias and shops shut for a week or two with a handwritten sign on the door. November to March is mild, wet in bursts, and the only time you will see the Pantheon without a queue. The 2025 Jubilee closed in January 2026, so pilgrim crowd levels have come back down to normal.