Rome City Pass

How the Rome City Pass works

You choose a duration of between one and seven consecutive calendar days and, within that period, use as many of the included services as you can fit in. The more of the programme you actually take up, the lower the price works out for each individual service.

After purchase, you receive the pass by email. You only need to collect something if you have added the public transport ticket. All other services are stored as digital documents on your phone and are shown at the attraction in question.

The pass does not include priority entry. For the attractions in high demand, however, you receive tickets with a fixed time slot. In Rome, a fixed appointment of this kind is the decisive point in practice, because demand at these sites is high, and whether you can still get a place on the day you want determines how you plan your day.

What the pass includes

Top attractions

The major sights include the Colosseum with the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, the Vatican Museums with the Sistine Chapel, St Peter's Basilica, Castel Sant'Angelo, the Pantheon and the underground of Piazza Navona. In total, Turbopass lists more than 26 included services; the following sections go through the most important of them.

For the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums, you make your reservation when you book. You state your preferred date and an approximate time slot, Turbopass takes care of the reservation and sends you the admission tickets by email. If your appointment is not available, you can deselect the attraction in question; the pass then becomes correspondingly cheaper. For Castel Sant'Angelo, you reserve yourself after purchase via a booking link. This is recommended but not compulsory.

Museums and historic sites

In addition, there are sites that are less well known: the Museo delle Cere, the GAMM Video Game Museum, the Case Romane del Celio, Palazzo Merulana, the Vicus Caprarius at the Trevi Fountain, Palazzo Barberini with the Galleria Corsini, and the archaeological park of Ostia Antica. At the Museo Leonardo da Vinci Experience, you receive a discount rather than free entry. No reservation is needed at these sites; you simply show the pass and receive your ticket.

Tours and extras

Also included are a hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus tour, a hop-on hop-off boat tour on the Tiber and an English-language guided city tour, which takes place daily, lasts around 90 minutes and can be joined without registering. On top of that come a catacombs tour including transfer, a three-hour bike tour, the multimedia video "Ancient Rome" at Touristation and left-luggage storage at the main station.

Public transport and airport

The ATAC ticket for the metro, buses, trams and some suburban trains is an optional add-on; it is valid for as long as the pass. There is no digital version of this ticket, so you collect it in Rome. There are three collection points, including one at the main station. You can also add the airport bus to and from Fiumicino or Ciampino. When you do, make sure you select the correct airport.

What is not included

The pass does not include the Galleria Borghese, a guided tour of St Peter's Basilica, the Capitoline Museums or the Leonardo Express from the airport. If one of these is on your list, buy the ticket for it separately.

What the pass costs

The price depends on the duration: the longer the pass is valid, the less it costs per day. There are cheaper passes for children aged 6 to 9 and for young people aged 10 to 17; infants up to 5 pay nothing.

Prices include the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums, as Turbopass lists them. The public transport ticket and the airport bus are added if you need them.

Whether the pass pays off

More telling than the price of the pass is the amount you would pay without it. For a typical three-day programme, the picture looks like this:

Two points do not appear in this calculation but speak in favour of the pass. First, tickets for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums are often no longer available at these prices at all, because the official allocations sell out early; what remains are more expensive ways of booking. Second, the calculation shifts further in the pass's favour if you also visit a museum during those three days or use the left-luggage storage.

The reverse applies just as much: if you have no interest in several items on this list, the comparison comes out considerably lower, and the pass does not pay for itself on your trip.

Purchase and documents

The pass is sold by Turbopass. You can pay by credit or debit card, by instant bank transfer (Sofort), with PayPal or by bank transfer in advance. The confirmation email contains the digital pass for you to print or save. The tickets for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums follow a little later, but in good time before you leave. If you have booked the public transport ticket, the collection voucher is also in this email.

What speaks against the pass

No product suits every trip. You should know the following five points before you decide to buy:

• The pass is not a single ticket. It consists of several files and individual tickets. If you do not look through and sort the documents once after purchase, you may not have the right document to hand at the crucial moment in Rome.
• Under 26, it pays off less often. EU citizens aged between 18 and 25 pay considerably reduced admission at several attractions and museums. The advantage of the pass is correspondingly smaller in this age group.
• The saving remains moderate. It is there, but it stays within modest limits. How large it turns out to be depends above all on how many of the included services you actually use.
• The cancellation fee is high. You can cancel up to one day before the first day of validity, but a fee of €50 per pass applies.
• You have to collect the public transport ticket. This applies to all Rome passes with a travel ticket, but here it is the only service you have to pick up in person in Rome.

Still undecided? The direct comparison of all eight Rome passes is on the home page.