ITALY - Best of Europe 2014 - page 901

sight(youcanbuyitatasightevenifyoudon'tintendtouseitthere).Don'tbotherto
order it online—you have to physically pick up the pass in Rome, which negates any
time-saving advantage.
Validate your Roma Pass by writing your name and validation date on the card.
Then insert it directly into the turnstile at your first two (free) sights. At other sights,
show it at the ticket office to get your reduced (ridotto) price—about 30 percent off.
To get the most of your pass, visit the two most expensive sights first—for ex-
ample, the Colosseum (€12) and the National Museum (€10). Definitely use it to by-
passthelongticket-buyinglineattheColosseum.Forsightsthatnormallysellacom-
bined ticket (such as the Colosseum/Palatine Hill/Roman Forum or the National Mu-
seum branches), visiting the combined sight counts as a single entry.
The Roma Pass comes with a three-day transit pass. Write your name and birth
date on the transit pass, validate it on your first bus or Metro ride by passing it over a
sensor at a turnstile or validation machine (look for a yellow circle), and you can take
unlimited rides within Rome's city limits until midnight of the third day.
The TI's other passes—Roma & Più Pass (“Rome & More”) and the Archeologia
Card—are generally not worth the trouble for most tourists.
Combo-Ticket for Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill: A €12 combo-ticket
covers these three adjacent sights (no individual tickets are sold per sight). The
combo-ticket allows one entry per sight and is valid for two days. Note that these
sights are also covered by the Roma Pass. To avoid ticket-buying lines at the Colos-
seum and Forum, purchase your combo-ticket or Roma Pass at the lesser-visited Pal-
atine Hill. Between the combo-ticket or Roma Pass, the pass is the better deal, unless
you're planning on seeing only the sights covered by the combo-ticket.
Top Tips
MuseumReservations: ThemarvelousBorgheseGalleryrequiresreservationsinad-
vance (for specifics, see here ) . You can reserve online to avoid long lines at the Vatic-
an Museum (see here ) .
Opening Hours: Rome's sights have notoriously variable hours from season to
season. Get a current listing of opening times—ask for the free booklet Evento at a TI
or your hotel. Or check online at www.060608.it/en (find “Cultural Heritage” in the
menu under “Culture and Leisure”; search by using the Italian names of sights). On
holidays, expect shorter hours or closures.
Churches: Many churches, which have divine art and free entry, open early
(around 7:00-7:30), close for lunch (roughly 12:00-15:00), and close late (about