Rome for Free

Though the dollar may be stronger these days, a visit to Rome can still wear through the wallet. Whether the focus is a gourmet blow out vacation or an intensive art history lesson, Rome is expensive. Museums tend to be priced more than expected and do not have friendly student discount policies, which means visitors find themselves deliberating over where to go based on costs, sacrificing many of Rome’s best sites and collections for the triumvirate– Sistine Chapel, Roman Forum and Colosseum.

Imagine if cost wasn’t an issue. Penciled next to visits to the Vatican and Forum would be a study of the Futurist movement at the Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery, a peak into Rome’s perfectly preserved port city Ostia Antica, a morning visiting the monumental tombs on the Appia Antica, an afternoon at the Doria Pamphilj collection, a glance at Napoleonic legacy at the Museo Napoleonico,  a walk around the Baths of Caracalla,  and learn about how it all began at  Villa Giulia plus a few others. The list would be never ending and realistically, your trip would last weeks doing the things you want to do as well as the things you have to do.

But you only have 9 days and you do not have to spend any money. From April 16 through 25 is Italy’s annual Settimana della Cultura–cultural week– where every state-run museum, collection and archeological site is free. In addition, several institutions and sites program special once-a-year events to make the week unforgettable. The catch? You must do your research. Not all museums in Italy are state-run. HINT: if it says nazionale, national, it is free. If it doesn’t, it probably isn’t.  (Last year, however, Rome announced that most of its city-run museums were free like the Ara Pacis, Museum of the Walls, and Capitoline Museum.) And since Cultural Week is a huge attraction, many sites and events may require advance reservations.