VIP Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill & Special Access Sites
Description
Discover Ancient Rome with special access to the exclusive ‘Super Sites’. Beyond the iconic Colosseum and Roman Forum, step inside beautifully preserved villas and buildings not seen by most tourists. Explore early Christian sites, wander through the childhood home of a Roman Emperor with vibrant original frescoes, and enter the Domus Tiberiana, touched by Nero himself. This expertly guided tour is designed for curious travelers ready to go beyond the usual highlights and uncover the deeper stories of Rome’s imperial past.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Begin your journey through ancient Rome with a visit to the Forum, where you'll be transported back in time to experience the daily life of the empire’s citizens. As you walk along the same stones that Julius Caesar and Mark Antony once did, your guide will make the ruins feel alive again with fascinating stories and anecdotes.
Head up Palatine Hill and into the SUPER Sites, a collection of exquisitely preserved ancient villas, temples, churches, and more. This area is rarely accessible to visitors, but with special access tickets secured in advance, you'll walk right in. The specific sites you'll visit will vary depending on what's open the day of your tour. A few possibilities are the House of Augustus, the onetime home of Caesar Augustus with vibrant frescoes that rival those of Pompeii; the church of Santa Maria Antiqua, a rare example of early Christian art and architecture; or the Domus Tiberiana, Ancient Rome's first imperial palace dating to the first century AD. No matter which of the SUPER Sites you visit, you're guaranteed an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience away from the crowds.
Finally, no tour of ancient Rome would be complete without a visit to the Colosseum. You'll ascend to the first and second tiers and immerse yourself in the reality of a day at the games, from animal hunts and halftime executions to gladiatorial combat and gambling.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- Unfortunately due to the nature of this tour it is not suitable for guests with mobility impairments or with wheelchairs, or strollers.
- This is a walking tour. Guests should be able to walk at a moderate pace without difficulty.
- This tour is fully refundable up to 7 days prior to the event. Within 7 days, this tour is 100% non-refundable.
- The full names of all participants must be provided at the time of booking and match the names on their ID. The Colosseum requires all guests (including children) to present government ID at the time of entry. Therefore any guest that does not submit their name in advance of the tour, or who does not bring their ID to the meeting point, will be refused participation without refund. Name corrections are possible up to 7 days before the visit. After this, changes may not be possible.
- The Colosseum, Forum, Palatine Hill, and House of Augustus may close occasionally. We'll notify you of any changes in advance if possible. For last-minute closures, updates will be given at the start of the tour.
- Walks is an Official Parco Archeologico del Colosseo Operator approved to lead guided tours of the Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill.
Reviews(253)
Limited restrooms. Very long tour with many steps. Excellent guide. Very informative but a lot to take in in 3 hours
Olga was a very knowledgeable and patient guide. We enjoyed our tour of the coloseum and ruins! Well organized, easy to find. Love the headsets. A+
I can’t recommend this tour enough! My partner and I did the tour in mid-July. Olga was our tour guide and she was an absolute font of knowledge. She was very engaging, happy to answer any and every question and knew so much interesting information about the forum and the colosseum. The VIP tickets are worth the extra money, we got to see inside August’s palace which was super interesting. If you can get on a tour with Olga you will not be disappointed, her knowledge extends to the entirety of the city of Rome and she made it by far the best tour I have been on!
Although informative, we stayed in place most of the time. We were not able to explore the many artifacts and rooms other than from afar, instead showed pictures from a book. We were also under the assumption(what we thought we paid for)that we would be going to the ground level and seeing the Gladiator Gate at the Colosseum and all we did was go to the second level and again find a shaded area to sit and listen.
Dear Daniel, Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. I’m very sorry to hear the tour didn’t meet your expectations and that the pacing and presentation left you feeling disappointed. We always aim to deliver engaging, dynamic experiences, and it’s clear from your comments that we fell short in this instance. Your feedback is incredibly valuable and will be shared with our team as we continue refining and improving our tours. All the best, Samantha.
Enjoyed our tour. The tour guide was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Highly recommend this tour. This tour covers multiple attractions in detail.
Fabulous tour! Our guide (I think his name was Pablo) enthusiastically shared his knowledge about Ancient Rome with us! Highly recommend this tourGreat way to end our Italian vacation!
While we enjoyed having access to the arena floor and super sites, we felt that the tour was not at all informative. We spent a lot of money on this tour (a family trip) hoping to learn about ancient Rome, and were overall quite disappointed.
Hi Daniel, Thank you for sharing your feedback. We’re glad to hear that you enjoyed the access to the arena floor and the super sites, but we’re truly sorry to hear that the tour did not meet your expectations, especially considering the importance of this family trip. We understand how disappointing it can be when you’re looking forward to learning more about ancient Rome and feel that the tour didn’t provide enough depth. We strive to make each experience both informative and engaging, and we regret that this wasn’t the case for you. Your comments are incredibly valuable, and we’ll be sure to review the tour content to improve it for future guests. If you do have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at feedback@walks.org. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and we hope to have the opportunity to provide a more enriching experience for you in the future. Kindly, Andrii Walks & Devour Tours
The tour is as described--but the order apparently can change depending on time of day and/or other considerations, and this does matter for your overall experience. I might ask more questions of Walks before booking as to which itinerary order will be used. In our case, we started with the Colosseum, then went to the Forum, then to the sites on the Palatine Hill. Of the 3 hours, the bulk (approx 1.5 hours) was spent at the Colosseum, with multiple queues for security, ticket showing, etc. This was handled well by our guide, Nicolai(?). Even so, our time inside the colosseum felt rushed and the audio cut in and out so folks kept getting separated and it was challenging to keep the group together. We did visit the arena floor and had a few moments to take photos, as well as a stop at another point, but despite the amount of time and stops, we did not come away with a good appreciation of this location. I think for us, the reverse itinerary that others have reported would have been better--where we'd be left in the colosseum at the conclusion of our tour to continue to explore at our own pace. But once you leave the colosseum, you cannot re-enter. Then we proceeded to the Forum which we blew through very quickly on our way to the Palatine Hill sites; we were able to return to the Forum later and dig in a little deeper. Lastly, we made it to the Palatine Hill sites which I had not visited before. Even though we spent about an hour here viewing some different locations, I didn't feel like I got a good sense of the overall layout of the Palatine. In retrospect this probably just wasn't the right tour for us. If you want to be able to move at your own pace, best to just buy colosseum entry tickets on your own, but that wasn't possible in our case (they sold out immediately). I'm not sure that the "floor access" really added anything in particular, it's only a small portion of the floor that has been reconstructed and the view isn't really that different from other places. I'm interested in how the building is constructed and the irony is you can get better views of that at the amphitheatre at Pompeii and walk as slowly as you like. PROS: guide did include interesting facts about sites--just somehow less than we expected, perhaps this was driven as much by questions from the group as anything else.
Dear Christopher, Thank you for taking the time to provide such a detailed review. We are glad to hear that Nicolai handled the tour well and that you appreciated the interesting facts shared during the experience. However, we regret that certain aspects of the tour, such as the itinerary order and pacing, didn't fully meet your expectations. The order of sites can vary depending on factors like entry availability and site management, which is why we always strive to balance timing and guest experience. We'll review your feedback closely to see where we can make improvements. If you'd like to discuss your experience further, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at feedback@walks.org. We hope to offer a more tailored experience should you choose to tour with us again in the future. Best regards, Jhonas. Walks & Devour Tours.
This didn’t work for us. We got caught in traffic and couldn’t make it to the meeting point in time. I wish the website or at least the post-purchase info was more explicit about there being no on-site office—just a meet up point. Not the companies’ faults but more info might have helped us plan. That said, unless you really want to tour tje Colloseum with a horde of others, get yourself a Forum Pass, an illustrated map, and go in by Trajan’s Column—no line at all.
Dear Lisa, Thank you for sharing your experience. We are sorry to hear that traffic impacted your ability to reach the meeting point on time. While we do provide details about the meeting point in the tour information, we understand how more clarity could have been helpful. For future reference, if you miss a tour, we can often try to reschedule for another day, depending on availability. Feel free to reach out to us at feedback@walks.org, and we’ll be happy to assist further. Best regards, Jhonas. Walks & Devour Tours.
Had a great 3.5 hour tour with Eddy, a PhD in Archeology. It was a brutally hot day and Eddy took pains to make sure we stayed in shade and had plenty of water breaks. He explained the history and cleared up some myths about the areas we toured in an entertaining way. I have had 4 or 5 previous tours (most private) and I would go on a small group tour with Walks of Italy again.
