Rome has 634 churches and an enormous amount of monuments and art galleries. This incredible heritage accumulated along the centuries and it's very hard to be visited in few days.
Therefore, since a couple of years more people is coming to Rome less from its airports and more through its port, which is located in the ancient portual city of Civitavecchia, one and half hour far from Rome with a minibus transportation.

This important port of the central part of Italy is becoming a hub with more ships arriving at its docks carrying around 6.000 passengers all at once early in the morning.
Because of these changes in the way of approaching to the eternal city, it's very difficult to make a choice of the places to see.
At the beginning of 2007 the Vatican started to make difficulties for the individuals to enter the Sistine chapel, because its management prefers to give priority to the organized groups first from 8.00 to 10.00 in the morning. This decision would have never been a problem if the most important museum of Rome would have opened for more hours, but unfortunately the opening hours of the Vatican museums are still the same with a closing time that is at 3.30 pm from Monday to Friday.

The experience and the last events suggest always to find alternative paths in order to enjoy the treasures of Rome that are not only limited to the visit of the Vatican.

For example, a deep and comprehensive tour of ancient Rome during the summer time with a minibus is a marvelous way to understand the origins of the western civilization. In fact driving across the Seven Hills of Rome, from the Aventine hill, people can understand how Romulus became the first king of Rome and the importance of the Palatine hill in which he saw the 12 eagles sent to him from Jupiter. But between the Palatine Hill and the Aventine the Etruscan kings of Rome built the biggest stadium in the ancient world with a capacity of spectators five times more than the Colosseum: the circus maximus, used to perform the chariot races competitions.

And few people know that having a limousine at disposal for the day tour of Rome, from the Circus maximus takes only 5 minutes to reach the queen of the roads, the Appian way, which was built by the Romans in 312 BC to bring the Romans to the Samnites lands until Capua, which is not far from the famous city of Pompeii.
If you say Appian Way, you have to say catacombs too, because these two archaeological areas are connected and they have at least 2000 years of history. The catacombs are underground Christian cemeteries built by the early Christian community to bury their relatives. Each of this cemetery consists in underground tunnels flanked by tombs which look like shelves and today these complexes have an unbelievable importance for the roman epigraphy and belong to the Vatican city, after a treaty signed in the cathedral of saint John in Lateran in 1932 between the Holy see and the Italian government.