Siewling Lay

It’s walking distance from the Vatican, quite centrally located, the whole structure stands out and can be seen from far, it actually looks quite cool but surprisingly empty. I went after my morning tour at the Vatican and bought tickets on the spot easily. There is a path to follow through the whole site with some options for quick exits. The whole place is quite well laid out and with quite a few things to see. The views from the top is pretty amazing as well. Definitely worth a trip.

Very few of the structures are intact but it’s still an unique and interesting experience to walk through a major area where key Roman activities took place back in the days. It is very useful to have a guide to make sense of the ruins, and also to listen to interesting (sometimes funny) stories about Roman emperors. Also, useful to have skip the line access with tours because the queue to get in is always crazy long! Be prepared for a lot of people, super warm temperatures and lots of walking. There is water fountain on site for fresh drinking water so just bring a bottle and refill.

The shopping and dining here is definitely not high end and I wouldn’t even think it’s impressive, do not expect Milan standards. The coffee places are cosy and chill tho, it’s especially nice in the morning to just have breakfast at the galleria with zero crowd. The architecture and the overall building is very nicely done, but it doesn’t feel like it’s super well maintained, with the fading and dirty looking facade.

I was a little confused when I was looking up information for the place. So basically, during busy period, you can just turn up (note the opening hours tho!), get a ticket on the spot and wait for a group to form in the language you preferred. For English, and arriving when the site opens in the morning, it was less than 15min wait, basically for everyone present to pay for their tickets. Then a guide (included in the ticket price) will take the whole group on a guided tour through part of the catacomb. It is not possible to visit the catacomb on your own, and I can see so many reasons why. The risk of getting lost is real! Tour groups with their own guides also visit and they will just go straight through. The experience is really quite a unique and amazing one. The guide was very informative and the group size was not too big. There are not too many visitors so you don’t really see or hear too many people around unlike another catacomb I visited where you see a big group at every turn. Emerging in a pretty church after the catacomb was a pleasant surprise.

It’s crowded everywhere in Rome so it’s nice to have a tourist spot that is actually not too crowded. I turned up, bought tickets on the spot and there was zero queue. The entire area is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, I cannot imagine a bath house of this size! Looking at the towering structures, the ones that are still standing, I can totally imagine how majestic the whole place used to be. There are remaining floor mosaics, wall sculptures, standing sculptures, wall paintings scattered throughout the whole site. It’s also fascinating how they used to heat up the bath water. There was a setup for some kind of a concert when I visited which kind of spoil the whole view tho but otherwise I really enjoyed my time just wandering around. There are few sheltered areas in the ruin but really not much so it’s best to visit when it isn’t pouring hard!