Handpicked experience · Rome
Rome, Italy
One card across an international border, a metro kept short by archaeology, and the cathedral of Rome that is not St Peter's.
Explore the extensive collection of antiquities, paintings and sculptures at the Borghese Gallery.
The grand Roman Forum was once the center of social, economical, and religious activity.
Take a look around St. Peter's Basilica, one of largest churches in the world and home to Michelangelo's famous Pieta statue.
The Vatican spiral staircase is the most photographed masterpiece in the Vatican Museum.
Both sides of the city on one pass, Vatican and Roman
More than thirty museums, galleries and monuments over three days
Getting around included, above ground and on public transport
Entry handled in advance, so arrivals are quick at each door
The OMNIA card is a seventy-two-hour pass covering both halves of the city: the Vatican side, with St Peter's, the museums and the Sistine Chapel, and the Rome side, with the Colosseum and more than thirty other museums and monuments. Public transport and an open-top sightseeing bus come with it.
The clock starts the first time you use the card, not on the day it is issued, so the practical question is where you begin. Most people give one block of time to the Vatican, one to ancient Rome and the third to whatever the first two made them curious about. Attractions still admit you on their own terms and at their own hours; the card is what gets you through the door.
Crossing St Peter's Square means crossing an international frontier. Vatican City covers about forty-four hectares and is the smallest sovereign state in the world, with its own police, its own newspaper, and a post office whose stamps people queue for because letters posted there genuinely move faster than those posted a few streets away. One pass covering both sides is doing something slightly unusual: it works across a border.
Rome has one of the shortest underground networks of any European capital, and the reason is under your feet. Every tunnel drives through two and a half thousand years of city. The most recent line took decades, because each new station turned into an archaeological excavation — a barracks here, a shipyard there, an entire farmhouse from the Bronze Age. Buses and trams do the work a metro would do elsewhere, which is why moving above ground matters here more than in most cities.
St Peter's is the largest church in Rome and the one everyone pictures, but the cathedral of the city — the bishop's own seat — is St John Lateran, across town. It also holds the older claim, having been the pope's residence for a thousand years before anyone moved to the Vatican. Both are on the card.
Mornings are the quiet hours at the Vatican, and the museums close on most Sundays, with a handful of exceptions each month. The Colosseum runs on timed entry. Sequencing around those two facts is what separates three comfortable days from three rushed ones.
The seventy-two hours run continuously once activated, not as three separate visiting days. Children are not covered by the transport component. This card cannot be cancelled once it has been issued.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
At first use rather than at issue, and they then run continuously — three consecutive days, not three separate visiting days you can spread out.
Yes. The Vatican is a sovereign state of about forty-four hectares with its own police, newspaper and postal service, and the card covers sites on both sides of that border.
Because tunnelling here runs through two and a half thousand years of city. Stations on the newest line turned into archaeological digs, uncovering a barracks, a shipyard and a Bronze Age farmhouse among much else.
No. The bishop's seat is St John Lateran on the other side of the city, which was the papal residence for a thousand years before the move to the Vatican. Both are covered.
Vatican mornings are quietest, the museums shut on most Sundays, and the Colosseum admits by timed slot. Building the sequence around those three facts is what makes the three days comfortable.
No — the public transport element does not extend to children, who travel under the city's own rules for young passengers.
No. Once it has been issued it is not cancellable, so it is worth fixing your dates before booking.