9 experiences
Rome is walkable and exhausting in the same breath: the Forum, the Pantheon and Trastevere are twenty minutes apart on foot, and the cobbles will still be felt at the end of the day. Most people over-plan the first morning and under-plan the evening, which is when the city is best.
Two things need booking rather than deciding: the Colosseum with arena or underground access, and the Vatican Museums early enough to see the Sistine Chapel without a crowd. Almost everything else — food tours, golf-cart and vespa tours, cooking classes — still has places close to the date.
Yes, and further ahead than most people expect. Arena-floor and underground tickets for the Colosseum, and the early-entry Vatican slots, are the two that regularly sell out weeks out. Standard entry is easier, and everything else in Rome is bookable much closer to the day.
Three hours is the standard: a food tour of Trastevere, a Vatican highlights visit, a small-group Colosseum tour. Golf-cart and vespa tours run three to four and cover far more ground. Anything sold as a full day is usually Rome plus somewhere outside it.
Rome after dark is the argument for staying an extra night. Evening food tours in Trastevere and Testaccio start around seven, night visits to the Colosseum run in season, and the historic centre is at its emptiest and best-lit after nine.