City Walkers Tours · Colosseo metro
City Walkers Tours takes a group of up to 25 through the Roman Forum, up the Palatine and into the Domus Tiberiana, and leaves the Colosseum out. It's the only Forum-first guided tour we found on Viator, so the Forum gets 45 minutes instead of the usual 30.
Almost every "Roman Forum tour" on Viator is a Colosseum tour with the ruins tacked on at the end. This one turns it around. The itinerary gives 45 minutes in the Forum, 30 on the Palatine and 15 in the Domus Tiberiana, the first real imperial palace, on the hill's north-west slope, open again since September 2023 after decades shut. The whole tour runs 1 hour 45 minutes with headsets, and your Forum and Palatine tickets are included.
What the guide adds is context. The Forum is low, broken and barely signed, a field of column stumps and brick cores. A good guide tells you which pile was the Senate house, where Caesar's body was burned, and how the Vestals lived beside the Temple of Vesta. The five-star reviews mostly praise exactly that. On some days the guide offers to carry on into the Colosseum: one guest extended, two others left before it, and the listing includes Colosseum entry only "with the dedicate option".
Now the complaint to know about. Two guests in 2026 say their group never reached the Palatine: in May a Colosseum add-on was folded in and the hill was dropped, and in April a guest wrote that the tour stayed in the Forum. Another counted a 35 to 40 minute wait to get in. Message City Walkers before you book and ask for the route on your date, and which official ticket they issue: a Forum Pass SUPER opens the Domus Tiberiana's exhibition rooms and the other SUPER sites, the ordinary ticket only the walk-through part.
Largo Gaetana Agnesi 5 is on the upper level of the Colosseo metro station, opposite the primary school entrance. Staff wear light-blue City Walkers uniforms. Bring ID.
The guide hands out headsets and walks the group to the Forum gate for the security check.
The Via Sacra, the Curia, the temples of Saturn and of Antoninus and Faustina, and the House of the Vestals.
Up to the palaces of the emperors and the terraces over the Forum.
The vaulted substructures of the first imperial palace, above the Forum. The tour ends here or, on some days, carries on to the Colosseum.
★★★★★This area is so rich with a complex history that it is great when a guide can simplify it for you [...] It brings the history to life.
★★★★★Alessandra was a very personable and knowledgeable guide. Seeing the Domus Tiberiana was spectacular!
★★★★★I recommend doing this tour as early as possible in the day to avoid large crowds that make it difficult to get into the Forum area [...] There is a choice whether to continue on to the Colloseum, but we opted out because we had visited the Colloseum before.
★★★★★Our tour guide, who was a college professor, did an amazing job explaining the historical facts about Roman history, emperors, Senators, and the Palatine Hill.
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Not on the standard option. The listing includes Colosseum entry only "with the dedicate option", and guests report the guide offering a continuation into the Colosseum on some days. Two guests say the Palatine was dropped when that happened, so confirm the route before you book.
The first true imperial palace in Rome, on the north-west slope of the Palatine, built in the 1st century AD and enlarged by Domitian and Hadrian. It reopened to visitors in 2023. The walk-through part is on the ordinary ticket; its seven exhibition rooms need a supplement or a Forum Pass SUPER. More in our SUPER sites guide.
At Largo Gaetana Agnesi 5, on the upper level of the Colosseo metro station (line B), in front of the primary school. Look for light-blue City Walkers uniforms and arrive 20 minutes early.
If the ruins are your main interest, yes. Without one the Forum is a field of fragments with few signs; with one you know what you're standing on. Our guide to Forum tours weighs it against the free MyColosseum app.
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One of the few guided tours that skips the Colosseum: the Forum, the Palatine and the Domus Tiberiana in 1 hour 45 minutes.
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