Rome with children: where to go and what to skip

What almost always works

• The Colosseum. It works on its own: the scale needs no words. How to buy tickets and why a child needs their own is in Colosseum tickets and what they include.
• Castel Sant’Angelo. Of all the Roman sights children like this one best: the spiral climb, cannons, the secret corridor and the rooftop view.
• The Circus Maximus. An empty field you can run across — and the story of the chariot races sits on it perfectly.
• Fountains and nasoni. Water is everywhere in Rome, and it is the main children’s entertainment that costs nothing.
• The Pantheon. Twenty minutes, a hole in the dome, rain coming inside. A simple, strong idea.

What works only with explanation

The Roman Forum, the Palatine, St Peter’s Basilica. On their own they are stone and marble: a child walks round in twenty minutes and asks for food.

What changes things is not dates but searching. Where the animal cages stood. Why the walls are full of holes. Where the women sat and where the slaves did. This works without a guide too, if you have read up in advance.

What to skip without regret

• The Vatican Museums with a child under eight. Seven kilometres of rooms and a one-way route you cannot leave.
• The galleries. Borghese, Barberini and the rest — two hours of painting in silence.
• The dome of St Peter’s with a pre-schooler. After the lift there are still 320 steps up a narrow sloping passage.
• The Colosseum underground. Narrow, dark and, through a child’s eyes, not much to look at.

How to build the day

The rule that saves a trip: two places before lunch, one after, and one of them a street rather than a gallery. A third site in a row will not be remembered by anyone.

Best to start with the Colosseum at opening: entry is strictly by time, and Colosseum tickets are bought in advance, with a child needing their own. Leave the afternoon for the street and for food — after two sights nobody has attention left.

Where to catch your breath

• Villa Borghese — a park with boats on the pond and bicycles for hire. The Bioparco zoo is inside it, if the stones have finally worn thin.
• The Janiculum hill — a panorama of the whole city, and at exactly midday a cannon is fired. Free and loud.
• Trastevere — the quarter across the river where people simply walk and eat in the evening.

The practical things people ask about

• Transport. Children under ten travel free, but the rules say a pushchair must be folded on the metro. The details are in the Rome metro, tickets and opening hours.
• Water. More than two thousand drinking fountains across the city, free and drinkable. A reusable bottle is essential.
• Food. Trattorias usually have no children’s menu, but they will do half a portion of pasta without discussion.
• Heat. From June to August nobody walks the open ruins in the middle of the day. That is a condition, not advice.

Our other Roman routes — from the Colosseum quest to gladiator school and a gelato workshop — are collected on the Rome tours page.