Rome and Florence Sighseeing Question
 

My husband is NOT a tour or museum person....

what is the best bet or seeing the vaticam and sistine chapel.... also for the uffizi in florence....

any suggestions on time of day- we will be there the first week of april.

also....any tips for visting the colosseum or roman forman?

thanks once again!

I am not a tour or museum person either. However, I was in Italy to see some history, so, I sucked it up for some of the time. For me, I really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, but was not prepared for the MAZE of musesums we had to walk to to get there. If there's a way to get in and just see the chapel, I don't know how. We didn't do tours of anything. We went to the Vatican and St Peter's, looked around at our own pace and then left. That was perfect for me.

For Florence, we skipped the Uffizi (the horror!), but I did want to see the real David, so we went to the Academia. Again, it's all at your own pace, so we looked at what interested us and left. Colusseum and Forum were the same. We had a guide book that helped decribe what we were looking at, but having someone lead us around and describing every last detail would have bored me to tears.

I'd say get us and do your site seeing in the morning and just spend the rest of your days exploring and relaxing!

...get UP and do your site seeing...

Make advance reservations for the Uffizi. Also, the Vatican is starting general admission to the Sistine Chapel later than usual--check their website. The Forum you can just walk through but have to pay to get into the Colosseum. You can avoid some of the wait by buying your ticket near the Palatine Hill (I believe that's where we got our, but check Rick Steve's guide book for this info). You might want to get on an English speaking tour for the Colosseum because you'd learn more.

Hi L,

In Florence I suggest the Accademia for David, about 2 hr in the Uffizi, the Piazza della Signoria and the view from the top of the Boboli Gardens.

You don't have to go into the Duomo, the Baptistry or the Medici Cahpel, but they are impressive.

Uffizi and Academia Museum Reservations
The easiest and cheapest way is to call Florence 1016868 (dial around number), 011 (U.S. international access code) 39 (Italy's country code) then 055-294-883 8:30-18:30 M-F and 8:30-12:00 Sat. Florence time. You will get an English speaking operator and in 2-3 minutes YOU CAN RESERVE FOR BOTH. This is through the reservation service at the Uffizi and costs beyond the normal entry fee only about 3 euro for the service. This is MUCH cheaper than the commercial booking services.

You will not be charged for the reservations unless you use them.

Enjoy your visit, even if your husband is a sullen lout who refuses to even look at some of the greatest art in the Western world. :) :)

((I))