Rome in January: Why Off-Season Is the Best Season: the places

Book a timed ticket — in January you'll share the arena level with dozens, not thousands

Walk straight in without the summer queue

Go at 8am in January and have it almost to yourself

Hosts the Befana market until January 6

A Sistine Chapel you can stand still in — the biggest off-season win

Winter security lines take minutes instead of hours

Ride tram 8 to the end of the line for Rome's definitive carbonara and fried gnocchi (closed Wednesdays)

Maritozzi con la panna since 1916 — go in the morning (closed Tuesdays)

Century-old Prati caffè — order the espresso in a dark-chocolate-lined cup

Descend through three layers of Rome, from medieval mosaics to a 1st-century Mithraic temple

Classical statues among the turbines of a 1912 power plant — quiet even in high season (closed Mondays)

Covered market lunch — find Mordi e Vai's slow-cooked beef panini

Free Aventine Hill orange garden with a sunset view over St. Peter's — the Knights of Malta keyhole is two minutes away

Unmarked Jewish Ghetto bakery since the early 1800s — pizza ebraica and ricotta–sour cherry tart (closed for Shabbat)

Rome's largest catacombs, with the crypts of nine 3rd-century popes — guided tours, ~40 minutes

Smaller catacombs where pagan mausoleums sit inside the later Christian complex