When to do the Scavi tour
 

Any suggestions on our April 19-21 visit to Rome. We won’t arrive until 4:30p.

19th - Pickup Papal audience tickets from Bishops’ Office near Trevi Fountain. Go see fountain, Pantheon and Spanish Steps.

20th - Leave hotel by 8am for Papal audience, How long does the audience last? Scavi Tour after. then Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Can we fit in the Scavi Tour that would be nice because we are already there. But would that be too much walking in one day?

21th - Scavi Tour, (Archeobus been having 2nd thought about this), Forum and Colosseo.

Marge

The Scavi tour all happens under St. Peters, so there is limited walking. There is some crouching and squeezing and up/down stairs, but not that much. Someone mentioned the air down there is not the best, which is true. It's hard to say how your plan will work, because you have to see what time the Scavi office assigns you for your tour.

I was going to say the same thing that wwwmarge said. When we requested reservations for the Scavi tour, we gave them the date and then were assigned a time. We took the tour on December 3rd, and in our case, we were assigned the 9:00 a.m. tour. I have no idea how many tours they do a day, just that they only allow like 120 people a day. If you really want to do the tour, you will have to make other plans around the tour time and not vice versa.

good luck!
Tracy

Sorry! I meant to say that I was going to say the same thing that WillTravel said.

I think I did mention in my original email to Scavi that I had the papal audience on Wednesday morning, but also gave them the choice of several other days. They did give me Wednesday afternoon as it turned out, but I couldn't have done the Vatican in-between. I'd devote at least 4 hours to the Vatican. However, you would likely be able to visit St. Peters Basilica itself either in-between or after the Scavi.