Visiting Palazzo Colonna: the two mornings a week it opens

The operator’s own sentence

The Colonna publish it in capitals, which I am reproducing because the capitals are part of what it tells you: “OPEN TO THE PUBLIC ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS, EVEN ON PUBLIC HOLIDAYS”. That reads to me like a line written by somebody tired of being asked whether the holiday closes it. It does not. What closes it is Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and every afternoon of the week.

Turning up on the wrong day is the commonest way to fail here, and it fails completely: there is no ticket desk keeping half-hours, no summer extension, no late opening. Eight hours a week, and you either booked one of them or you did not.

What is open when

The two mornings are not the same visit and the difference is bigger than the clock. Friday or Saturday works through it properly.

The Friday tours, and the languages they run in

Friday is by reservation and the free guided tours run at fixed times. The operator lists them by language, and Italian gets the most of them, which is worth knowing before you assume an English slot will be there.

Which door, and the accessible entrance

Two entrances on two sides of one building, and the day decides which. Friday is Piazza SS. Apostoli, 66. Saturday is Via della Pilotta, 17. The operator also names an entrance for visitors with mobility difficulties, and that is Piazza SS. Apostoli, 66. Getting there has the walk from the Trevi Fountain and from Piazza Venezia.

The audioguide, and the thing nobody will confirm

It costs about five euros on top of either Saturday ticket, and it does not come as a handset: it arrives as a QR code and plays on your own phone. Six languages are live — Italian, English, French, Spanish, German and Russian — with Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese announced as coming. The full tariff, audioguide included, is on the tickets page, where the figures sit in a table because that is the only place on this site they belong.

Now the part I cannot settle. A reviewer called Graeme wrote of it: “interesting audio by a family member very personal”. That is a lovely detail and it may well be right. The operator’s own audioguide page does not say who narrates it, so what this site can tell you is that one visitor came away with that impression, and not that it is a fact. If you want it confirmed, ask at the desk; I have not managed to.

Book the admission

This is the flagship listing on the platform: admission, no guide, and the Princess Isabelle apartments sitting behind an option rather than inside the price. The widget prices itself, so it cannot go stale on this page.

Before you go

• Friday or Saturday — different hours, different door, different ticket, different guiding.
• Tickets — the operator’s published tariff beside the platform’s.
• What to see, in order — the operator’s own route through the eight named rooms.
• Getting there — which door, on which day.

Frequently asked questions