Hi all

Due to go to Rome for the first time in a couple of weeks (a Monday to a Thursday) and wondered whether you guys can help.

We will be looking to buy tickets for the vatican on line prior to our visit but wanted your opinion on what time of day is best to go to avoid the crowds? I heard it was better after lunch - is that true?

Also can you buy tickets on line for the colloseum prior to visiting? and again hwne is best to go?

You can buy tickets to the Vatican museum on the Vatican website http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html.

If you book a tour you can skip the museum lines altogether.

I've had two different guides tell me that at 2pm or later, there is either no line, or very few people in line. Last October we went twice during our trip, and agreed that was the case. We were inside within 5 minutes.
I won't generalize this to Sundays, or holiday times.
I do recommend going with a small group tour such as Context Rome; I don't personally recommend the Vatican's own guides whose command of English is variable.

Ps, Buy a Roma Pass. It gives you priority entrance for the Forum and Colosseum, among other sites, and it was quite fun to stroll past the hours-long ticket-buyers' line.

>>>If you book a tour you can skip the museum lines altogether.<<

? If you buy a ticket on the website you can skip the line. You don't have to buy a tour.

For the Colosseum, you can buy the Roma Pass (25€) which gets you free admission to two sites, discounts at others and three day transportation pass.
http://www.romapass.it/p.aspx?l=en&tid=2

>? If you buy a ticket on the website you can skip the line.<

You can skip the line TO GET INTO THE VATICAN MUSEUM with a reservation voucher, but you still have to stand in line INSIDE the museum to redeem it for a ticket. The line does move rather quickly, however.

The Vatican Museum was packed to the rafters when we were there in September. We arrived around 1 PM.

We felt like cattle being led to slaughter inside the Sistine Chapel.

Thin, no fan

Hopefully for you, you will have a day like we had in December when there was virtually no line. We were let into the museum nearly an hour before our appointed 10 a.m. reserved ticket time, and the museum was crowd-free.

I assume the OP was asking about the line to get in the museum which can be extremely long at times. You can bypass that line with an online ticket reservation or with a group tour. That isn't to say you will avoid all lines at the museum as you will still have security lines (even with a group tour),audio guide rental,check packages/coats line, etc., but these lines are nowhere near the length of the line to get in.

Maitaitom and I were there on the same day (extremely hot december day) and there was no line. I actually booked my reservation online and got my tickets from the desks down by the security stations. Went out shopping for about an hour and then came back...no line still. Walked straight in through security and into the museum within minutes.

Once inside there were a lot more people than I expected but no where near what ThinGorjus experienced. True, it can feel like you are being herded at times but that was mainly due to the fact that the museum wasn't really built to handle thousands of people walking the halls every day and the path you take can get narrow at times (especially in the stairways).

I don't recommend guided tours unless you don't want to do any research. It's really simple to just print out a few pages of information online and read them as you go through the museum. I actually copied and pasted stuff I researched on my Ipod touch into the "notes" app and just read them as I toured the museums and different parts of town. Saves you from having to carry big heavy guidebooks or pieces of paper around.