With very little notice (given that the event is a mere 2 weeks away and was first announced in November 2011) the authorities in Rome have just announced that the Colosseum is no longer to be included in the annual ‘Settimana della cultura’ initiative, an annual event that sees free entry to many Italian museums, monuments and galleries.
We know that many of you time your trips to Italy to coincide with this event as it brings considerable savings, and our order book reflects this. So, we have two options – Option one would be to contact all of you and let you know that you are going to have to pay full price for something you’ve already paid for at a reduced price, through no fault of yours nor indeed ours.
Option two would be to swallow the cost of this ourselves. We hope you’ll be pleased to hear that we’re going with Option two. Your original vouchers will still be valid and you shan’t be asked to pay any extra at any time. We will pay the extra on your behalf. We will be mailing all of you to explain this directly.
We had previously blocked our system from accepting straightforward ticket (as opposed to tour) orders during the event (14th to 22nd April 2012) but we have now reopened the calendar to enable bookings once more. Prices for all tickets and tours have been reset to standard levels.
If you’re curious, the intial communication looks like this and roughly translates to ‘Please note that as detailed in the attached decree from the regional director, the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill have been excluded from the 2012 edition of Settimana della Cultura’
The decree looks like this and pretty much boils down to the phrase ‘ragioni espresse relativamente alla sicurezza del visitatori’, translating to ‘reasons exclusively related to the security of visitors’.
Colosseum tickets
Colosseum tours
Colossseum dungeons and upper levels