Full transcript of “Big Changes to Visiting Rome's Major Sites That You Need To Know About.”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 There are some big changes to a couple of Rome sites, including Trevy Fountain and St. Peter's Basilica. You don't want to show up at Trevy Fountain and be disappointed. If you understand, you can actually create a better experience for yourself at Trevy Fountain. And I'm going to show you a very unique way to enjoy Trevy Fountain all by yourself. And I'm going to show you how to avoid the lines at St. Peter's Basilica and the dome. And no, you don't have to get up at 5 in the morning. There's a new way to access these sites that is actually far superior, but you need to know about them in order to take advantage of them. And that's what I'm going to show you in this video. If you like what you see in this video, be sure to give it a thumbs [Music]
0:48 up. Our first stop is Rome's Trevy Fountain. [Music] Hey. [Music] You may have heard that in 2024, Trevy
1:33 Fountain was closed for most of the year. They were doing some renovation to it. It's now reopened. But when they reopened it, they've also implemented controlled access or restricted access. What that is, they're only allowing so many people to go down by the fountain at any given time. And this restricted or controlled access runs from 9:00 a.m. till 9:00 p.m. daily except on Mondays and Fridays. Re uh controlled access is from noon until 9:00 p.m. On Mondays, Trevy Fountain is closed for cleaning. So if you show up Monday morning, you might be a little bit disappointed, but if you show up after 9:00 p.m. before 9:00 a.m., you can go down to the Trevy Fountain just as before. There's nobody controlling the amount of people that are down there, which can be a good or bad thing. But overall, I think your
2:19 experience at Trevy Fountain will be enhanced by not having so many people, but it also means that if you show up, you're probably going to have to stand in line and maybe even a long line. So, I do recommend that you still go between 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. And here's a tip. If you want to get down and have access to Trevy Fountain basically all by yourself, go down about 8:30 in the morning. The workers show up, they kind of start setting up and they stop anybody else from going down to the fountain. The people that are down there can stay down there. Now, those people that are down there slowly start exiting. Just hang out, sit down by the fountain there, and wait until they force you out at 9:00. And by then, you'll be basically the only one down there enjoying Trevy Fountain and creating an experience that you'll never
3:05 forget. So, give that a try. It worked great for us. I'll be curious to hear if it works for you. On our YouTube channel, we try to post informative and hopefully fun videos about Rome. At least that's the goal. If you enjoy videos about Rome, please consider subscribing. On your visit to Rome, be sure to visit St. Peter's Basilica and climb to the top of its dome. [Music]
4:32 In order to skip the line, at St. Peter's Basilica. The only real way up until now was to get there when it first opened. Get up early and get there when it opens at 7 in the morning. The lines are very minimal. But for many people, it just isn't, you know, possible. Might be coming from other areas, other cities. Maybe they had a late night and they just simply don't want to wake up early in the morning. Now, you also can skip the line. In fact, this is really skipping the line. Before it was more like avoiding the line, but now you can really skip the line. And the way you do it is you purchase the new audio guide. When you purchase the audio guide, it gives you the express entry into Vatican City. Bypassing that big line. You're able to just walk right through security to a shorter line and uh then access the
5:19 uh St. Peter's Basilica. Also online, you can purchase the dome tickets in advance. The dome tickets also include the audio guide that will give you express entry. Now, it makes it super easy to skip the line at Vatican City. Simply purchase the audio guide in advance. Now, this is the key. You do have to purchase this at least 24 hours in advance, subject to availability. I recommend you purchase it much sooner than 24 hours in advance, but you can also pick the time of day that you want to go. The only real advantage of going early in the morning is those crowds will still be minimal where it'll be much more satisfying to walk past that big line and be able to go right in. You'll still have to deal with the crowds in the basilica and on top of the dome, but it's a great alternative and it'll save you a lot of time. Be sure to
6:05 check out our travel guide. It has interactive maps to some of the best food in Rome, a 70 plus page PDF, and hours and hours of helpful video. I'll put a link to it in the description with a discount code where you can pick it all up for right around $20. Now, I'm going to share with you some tips to visiting one of our favorite places in Rome, the Roman Forum. Heat. Heat. [Music]
7:15 Your visit to Rome would not be complete without a visit to the Imperial Forums. Luckily, if you're going to be visiting the Coliseum, it includes a ticket, an entrance into the Imperial Forums either 24 hours prior to your scheduled time or 24 hours after. Anytime in that window, you can visit the Imperial Forums. But what I'm going to show you or share with you is a couple of ideas of how to make the most of the Imperial Form and how to spend less time in line and more time having fun. First thing is, let's say you you've got an appointment to go into the Roman coliseum and you're going to visit the Imperial Forum afterwards. Right after, what I would recommend is you avoid this entrance here. Number three, don't try to enter there, especially in peak season. The lines can just be too long. It's not uncommon to
8:01 wait 30, 40 minutes or longer because you still have to go through security and that's kind of a slow process. So, if it can be avoided, enter just down from there. It's about a 5minute walk. It says number one right here. There's an entrance point there. Much shorter lines. You can usually get right into the uh Roman form. And then you'll also be entering here towards the Palentine Hill area. So you can visit Palentine Hill. Check out the awesome views on Palentine Hill before coming down. You're going to descend maybe 40 50 feet down to the base down here where the main imperial forms at the Roman forms. Right down here. Okay. And then what people miss oftentimes when they visit the forum is they miss the uh trains
8:47 form which is on this side of the imperial form. This road here via the imperial form. What you're going to do is you're going to as you're walking through past all these buildings there's you're going to walk in this edge over here and then right around here there's an underpass. It will go under the road. When you go under you're going to be able to check out some of these, you know, some old sites, some like Roman housing and different things. It's kind of interesting as you walk under the imperial form and then you're going to come up here in the Traan's forum and as you walk towards there's a big column called Traan's column. As you walk towards that column you're going to see there's the Traian market. Now that's the oldest enclosed market in the world. It was built around 100 BC and it's very very interesting. You can see it from the outside but you're going to need to pay a separate entrance to go into it.
9:33 But I'll show you that in one second. So then what I would do is I would get done and then exit here at 6, walk around the corner. It's about up there's some stairs. You'd walk up some stairs and the entrance is right here. It's 3 minutes is all it is a walk and you can then enter Traan's market and trust me a visit to the Roman forum would not be complete without a visit to Traan Market. It's spectacular. It's rarely crowded. It's a three or four story building. Lots to see and do. Great views from there as well. We loved it. So, I would recommend you do that. That's how I would do it. Now, if I was doing it in reverse, let's say I had a late afternoon entry into the coliseum. Then, what I would do is I would go visit Traan's Market first, spend 45 minutes to an hour in Traan's Market.
10:20 Upon exiting Traan's Market, you just walk down the stairs. Again, Traan's column. It's a big column. You can't miss it. There's an entrance into the form from there. So you can enter right there making sure that you don't miss Traan's form. You walk through the form then under the road and you come out here on the other side again visiting the Roman form area first. Well, you know, after you cross the road, then be sure to go up to the top of, you know, over here to Palentine Hill because again, the views are spectacular and you don't want to go visit the form and miss that and then go and exit down here right next to the coliseum and then enter in the coliseum. So, let's say I had a 2:00 entrance into the coliseum. I
11:06 would try to go to the forum when it first opened at 9:30 in the morning. That way, you have plenty of time. you're not, you know, really pushing yourself against the clock. You may exit here a little earlier. And then what I would do if I've got maybe an hour to spare, I maybe run across the street into the Monty neighborhood, grab something to eat, maybe 40. There's a great sandwich shop not far. There's lots of other little places you can go grab lunch before heading into the coliseum. So, that's how I would do it. Personally, both ways work great. Just depending on when your tickets are to the coliseum, my preference would be to start down on this end probably. But if you have an early time, a 9:30 a.m. entrance into the coliseum, that would be great, too. But if they those are sold out, you can only get 11 or 12, then I'd probably push it out a little
11:51 bit further. Start over here and end here opposed to starting here and ending over here. Both ways are great. Again, the Roman form is really, really spectacular. It's uh one of those must-see sites in Rome. There's a couple of them and this is one of them. I hope this was helpful. To the next one.
