Colosseum Rome
The Colosseum in Rome is an extraordinary place that deserves to be visited at least once in a lifetime. We offer you useful information about the monument and where to buy tickets.
After receiving more than 90 million votes for the initiative undertaken by B. Weber, the Colosseum was included in the list of New Wonders of the World and was designated by the former director general of UNESCO, the Spaniard Federico Mayor: a masterpiece of indisputable value, loved by the Romans and by the world. More than seven million tourists visit it every year. Declared a Unesco World Heritage Site and “One of the New Seven Wonders of the World”, the Colosseum is one of the most important and sought-after historical attractions in the world. The whole area around the Colosseum, from theArch of Constantine to the Roman Forums, is a true outdoor archaeological site that is worth seeing at least once in a lifetime. For this reason, visiting the Colosseum is and will always remain a must for every citizen of the world. The Colosseum is one of the most visited archaeological sites in the world, with an ever-growing number of visitors. More than 60 million visitors have been estimated in the last 10 years, with records of more than 7,000 a year.
SKIP THE LINE TICKET
Book your priority access!
This ticket allows priority access to the Colosseum, avoiding the long lines at the ticket office. It is the ideal solution for those who want to make the most of the time spent visiting the Colosseum without waiting.
TICKET + GUIDED TOUR
Live an unforgettable experience!
Ticket includes a guided tour given by a historian or archaeologist who will provide in-depth details and trivia about the history of the Colosseum. Available in various languages, and possibility to add other attractions as well: Roman Forum, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel etc...
CARD
Buy your pass and save!
This pass offers combined access to several attractions in Rome, Colosseum, Roman Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, Pantheon etc. City audio guide, airport transfer, public transportation.
Do you want to book a ticket for the Colosseum?
Purchasing your Colosseum tickets online, even before arriving in Rome, is definitely the best way to skip the ticket line, get priority entry, choose the best experience, and tailor it to your needs.
Attention: Skip-the-line tickets and guided tours for the Colosseum in Rome can sell out well in advance, so it is advisable to book tickets online in advance to avoid disappointment. It is very difficult to buy tickets on-site, so make sure to purchase Colosseum tickets online through our website.
Attention: The most fascinating parts of the Colosseum are the arena and the underground sections, which attract most visitors. Always check if your tour includes access to these areas!
Guided Tours of the Colosseum, from € 42.00 – Book your tour
Skip-the-line ticket without underground access, from € 18.00 – Book your ticket
Do you want to visit the Colosseum with a guide in your language? Book your tour here.
GOOD DEAL! Purchase the Rome City Pass which includes combined access to several attractions in Rome, including the Colosseum and major archaeological sites.
Sold out? No tickets available? Check the dates of this tour which rarely sells out.
Opening Hours
March 31 – September 30: Every day from 8:30 am to 7:15 pm – Last entry at 6:30 pm
October 1 – October 29: Every day from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm
October 27 – March 30: from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Closed on January 1, May 1, and December 25.
Tours
Tours and guided tours of the Colosseum
Guided tours of the Colosseum are unique and engaging experiences that lead you to discover one of the most famous monuments in the world. Thanks to the expert guide, you will have the opportunity to immerse yourself in the millenary history of the Flavian Amphitheater and to discover the hidden secrets of this ancient wonder. You’ll get an up-close look at the majesty of the building, walk through the corridors that led to the seating areas, visit the dungeons, and experience the thrill of standing in a place that has seen epic historical events unfold.
Card
The Omnia Card Rome is a card that allows access to some of the most famous tourist attractions in the city, such as the Colosseum, the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. With this card, users can avoid queues and save valuable time, as well as enjoy free public transport and discounts in some restaurants and shops.
The hop-on hop-off bus card is a tourist service that allows you to explore Rome comfortably on board panoramic buses. Thanks to this card, you can get on and off the bus whenever you want at one of the many points of interest in the city, such as the Colosseum, the Vatican, Piazza Navona and many others. The card has several options, including tours with a duration of 24, 48 or 72 hours, and allows you to see the most important monuments of Rome without the stress of traffic and parking.
Your visit to the Colosseum
Other Monuments
Take your time for the visit. The Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum cover a huge amount of space and with so many tourist crowds around, it can take quite a few hours to walk through everything you want to see.
The Name of the Colosseum
There are several myths and legends about the Colosseum and we treat them as such. searching, reading and listening, we have gathered some curiosities that come from the past and some questions that came out of the present. the first thing to deal with certainly concerns the name coliseum and when and why it began to be used instead of the flavian amphitheater.
The origin is not certain, many like the idea that the name “colosseum” descends from the “colossus” of Nero, an enormous statue (according to others of Heliogabalus in the guise of the sun god), 30 m high, which stood next to the amphitheater more or less where today is the entrance to the underground station. others think, simply, that the name underlines the (colossal) size of the circus itself and another theory makes it go back to the place where the amphitheater stands, in ancient “collis isei” from a temple of Isis which was on Mount Opium and it gave its name to the district, known as “iseo”.
There is also a curious legend according to which the coliseum would have been a temple inhabited by demons. the priests of this temple at the end of each ceremony addressed the followers with the question: “colis eum?” (do you worship him? that is, do you worship the head of these demons? referring to the devil); the name of the monument, coliseum, would have derived from this.
The story of the demons lasted a long time as even Benvenuto Cellini talks about it in one of his stories, where he narrates that one night he went to the Colosseum to attend the demonic manifestations with his friend Agnolino Gaddi and the latter, frightened, “made a trumpet of coregge with so much abundance of shit, which could do much more than zaffetica” and all the devils fled in great fury. it seems that, starting from the eighth century, the Flavian amphitheater assumed the name of colyseus, for the first time, in an epigram of the venerable Beda:
quamdiu stabat colyseus stabit et roma; quamdo cadet colyseus cadet et rome; quamdo cadet rome cadet et mundus. as long as the colosseum exists, rome will also exist; when the colosseum falls, Rome will fall too; When Rome falls, the world will fall too.
The Structure of the "Colosso" of Rome
The arena, the steps and the exterior the ancient genius, the architecture of the Flavian Amphitheater Colosseum in Rome.
Roman buildings are famous all over the world for their solidity and their genius. The architecture of the coliseum is the subject of study by various experts in the sector, it is a complex and articulated structure, solid and harmonious and still, some mechanisms used during the shows are still not perfectly explained, for example the flooding during the games with the boats.
Roman engineers had the Greek theater as a model. in the past, in fact, the verticalization of the building was necessary to contain the majority of spectators, as close as possible to the stage.
In the construction of the Greek theater, the natural slope of the hills where it was placed was exploited, but the genius of the Roman engineers was to join the load-bearing structures of two theaters to form an all-round theater (amphitheatron) which could hold twice as many spectators.
all this was also made possible by the evolution of building techniques, the experience acquired over the years, and the new and revolutionary building materials.
One fact is certain, genius, experience and technology combined together gave birth to the amphitheatrum flavium, an amazing theater that hosted a huge mass of people around a great show.
A good 52 meters high, the equivalent of a 17-storey structure, the Colosseum manages to stand thanks to the brilliant construction technique of the arch, the architectural element used by the Romans to build the aqueducts. As many as 80 arches arranged over four floors create the famous elliptical shape of the coliseum, which could hold as many as 70,000 spectators.
About the Colosseum
Dimensions… colossal
The Colosseum is an elliptical building 189 meters long and 156 meters wide, covering an area of 24,000 square meters with a height of more than 48 meters. It has about 80 entrances and could accommodate about 70,000 spectators.
Work in progress.
It took just over 5 years to build it: from 75 to 80 AD. More than 100,000 cubic meters of travertine were used for the external wall alone.
A name, a mystery.
At first it was called the Flavian Amphitheater (it was built by Vespasian and Titus of the Flavian dynasty, ed). The name “Colosseum” only arrived in the Middle Ages: the most accredited theory is that it is called this because it was built near the statue of the “colossus” of Nero which stood a few meters from the amphitheater. Others say that it derives from the position, because it would rise on a hill where a temple of Isis once stood (hence Collis Isei). But there is also a black legend according to which in ancient times it was a pagan temple, where the devil was worshipped. And at the end of each ceremony the priests asked the followers: “Colis Eum?” (“Do you adore him?”).
Without the Colosseum there wouldn't be many historic buildings.
The marble of the facade and of some internal parts of the Colosseum were used for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica and also for civil buildings such as Palazzo Barberini. Fallen into abandonment, for a long time the amphitheater was in fact used as a source of building materials. So until the 18th century, when the love for the ancient remains of Rome returned. It is estimated that over time only a third of what was the original construction has remained.
Colosseum Tickets: Ticket Office and Information on the Colosseum in Rome
When it comes to getting tickets to the Colosseum, there are a number of options you can consider. Booking your ticket online is often the easiest choice for many tourists because it allows you to skip the line and eliminates long wait times when you purchase your ticket from the ticket office. For travelers who haven’t planned ahead, there are the dreaded queues at the ticket offices. But don’t be fooled by the fact that the desk outside the Colosseum is the only place you can buy a ticket. Queues here are long so if you don’t have time to wait you can always buy a tour online by taking advantage of a guided tour.
Quotes about the Roman Colosseum
“… alcuni mendicanti, accovacciati sotto le volte in rovina, avevano acceso un fuoco sulla nuda terra e un vento lieve spingeva appena il fumo verso l’arena… ci siamo fermati presso al cancello, ad osservare. brillava, alta, la luna; e a poco a poco il fumo, che sfuggiva attraverso le pareti, le fessure, le aperture, ne fu illuminato come una nebbia.”
J.W Goethe
1786/7 traveling in italy
“Vedo il suo mare immenso in gradini coperti da una folla di Romani; ecco i senatori; ecco il velo purpureo steso sopra la folla, il cui mormorio sembra quello di un mare in lontananza; poi il mormorio si muta in grida di gioia, grida selvagge, e quest’arena oggi così calma e silenziosa mi appare tinta di sangue…”
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
1836 Lettres D'Italie
“… Sotto i piedi abbiamo, nell’incanto della luna, il Colosseo, simbolo della storia colossale dell’impero, quasi una enorme conca marmorea in cui questa Roma ha raccolto il sangue di tutto il mondo. Dall’altro versante l’occhio si spande sulla città eterna, migliaia di lumi brillano, ma la città è silenziosa…”
Gregorovius
1858 In Walks Through Italy.
Il Colosseo di giorno, al chiaro di luna, a lume di torcia e con ogni sorta di luce è quanto di più stupendo e terribile.
charles dickens
1844-45
The Colosseum is like the skull of Argos: in the empty circles
clouds swim to it, a reminder of the ancient flock.
iosif brodsky
1974
“Roma esisterà finché il Colosseo lo farà; quando il Colosseo cadrà, lo farà anche Roma; quando cadrà Roma, così farà il mondo. “
Venerable Bede
672 AD
Tips And Info
Visiting the Colosseum is one of the main activities in the city of Rome, for this reason it is easy to find long lines on the site to buy entrance tickets, especially in the central hours of the day. Let us remember that Rome is overrun by tourists all year round. Even if you try to go early in the morning or late in the afternoon to avoid long queues, you risk waiting for a long time (the average wait is between 45 and 60 minutes). One of the best ways to avoid the long queues is to buy your tickets online, choosing between priority entrances and guided tours.
The best time to visit the Colosseum is in the morning when it opens, between 8.30 and 10.30, or in the late afternoon between 17.00 and 19.00. It takes at least two hours, indicatively, for the visit.
Here are some options for buying tickets to visit the Colosseum, one of the most popular attractions in Rome and throughout Italy. In some of these options you also have the opportunity to visit the nearby Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, in fact, are located right in front of the Colosseum, and seeing them from the outside without being able to enter them would be a real shame. Therefore, not only priority entrances and skip-the-line tickets, but real experiences created ad hoc.