Easter in Rome 2027: what is open, the papal events, and what to book

Holy Week 2027 runs from Palm Sunday, 21 March, to Easter Monday, 29 March. The table sets the three sights most trips are built around against the Pope’s calendar, so you can see which mornings are free for which visit.

The Vatican Museums' official 2027 calendar keeps them open from Monday 22 to Saturday 27 March, 8am to 8pm with last entry at 6pm, and that includes Good Friday and Holy Saturday. They are closed on both Sundays, on Easter Monday and, a few days earlier, on Friday 19 March. They reopen on Tuesday 30 March. There is no free Sunday in March 2027: the free last Sunday does not apply when it falls on Easter Sunday, and the next one is 25 April.

The Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine close only on 25 December and 1 January, so they are open on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. The park has published hours only to 28 February 2027 (8.30am to 4.30pm), so read the late March times on its page when you book. St Peter’s Basilica publishes 7am to 7pm up to and including 28 March 2027, with the dome open 7.30am to 5pm, but Holy Week liturgies are held inside the basilica and in the square, and the general audience fills the square on Wednesday morning, so the calm days for a visit are Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 March.

Elsewhere the week is easy. The Pantheon opens daily from 9am to 7pm and closes only on 25 December and 1 January, though as a working church its hours can change for religious celebrations. The Capitoline Museums open every day from 9.30am to 7.30pm and close only on 1 May and 25 December. The Borghese Gallery opens Tuesday to Sunday, Easter Sunday included.

The Vatican’s own ticket page is plain about the price: tickets for the general audiences and for the Holy Father’s liturgical celebrations are always free of charge. Lay visitors request them from the Prefecture of the Papal Household through its online booking site, which asks you to register before you can send a request.

On 13 November 2026 that site listed general audiences at 10am in St Peter’s Square on Wednesday 24 March 2027, the Wednesday of Holy Week, and on Wednesday 31 March. None of the Holy Week liturgies was listed yet, and the Vatican’s 2027 calendar pages were not published. So the times below are those of Holy Week 2026, when Easter fell on 5 April: treat them as last year’s pattern until the 2027 calendar appears, and check the Prefecture’s site again in the new year.

Two of the week’s moments are not ticketed celebrations at all. The Urbi et Orbi blessing at noon on Easter Sunday is given from the central loggia of the basilica to the whole square, and the Regina Caeli at noon on Easter Monday is said to the square too. Last year’s listing for the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum carried no ticket request link.

If you would rather have someone handle the morning, the Papal audience tour with reserved access gives you a guide and reserved access for the Wednesday audience, with the tickets arranged for you: it is rated 4.8 from 1,577 reviews and costs €74 for two. The audience ticket itself is free; what you pay for is the guide and the arranging.

Good Friday is an ordinary working day in Italy, and the Vatican Museums keep their full hours. The one sight that changes is the Colosseum, because the Pope leads the Way of the Cross there after dark.

The park has not announced 2027. Last year, on Good Friday 3 April 2026, the Colosseum opened from 8.30am to 1pm with last entry at noon and only the ordinary route on the first and second levels; the Roman Forum and Palatine opened from 9am to 1pm with last entry at noon. The year before, the park closed at 2pm with last entry at 1pm. In 2026 the Temple of Venus and Roma was also closed for about a week and a half beforehand while the site was prepared.

So plan Good Friday as a Colosseum morning. Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine with a guide is our pick for it: two and a half hours with a licensed guide and a reserved entry time, rated 4.8 from 94,507 reviews, €97.50 for two at today’s price. Choose the earliest start you can, and keep the afternoon for the Vatican Museums, which take last entries until 6pm.

These are the two days that need a plan, because the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel are closed on both. Easter Monday, Pasquetta, is a public holiday in Italy as well.

Easter Sunday morning belongs to St Peter’s Square: Mass at 10.15am and the blessing at noon on last year’s timings. After lunch, the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Capitoline Museums are all open on their published closing rules, and so is the Borghese Gallery, which runs timed visits from 9am to 7pm with the last entry at 5.45pm. The Borghese Gallery with an art historian, rated 4.8 from 2,280 reviews, is €98 for two.

Easter Monday is a Monday, the Borghese’s normal closing day. It opened specially on Easter Monday in 2023 and 2025, but nothing is announced for 2027, so do not build the day on it. The Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Capitoline Museums are the safe choices, and the Regina Caeli in St Peter’s Square at noon needs no ticket.

For the evenings, neither of the Fever shows we list had a Holy Week date on sale on 13 November 2026. Opera in Roma at St Paul’s Within the Walls plays on Fridays: its calendar offered 19 March and 2 April 2027 but skipped Good Friday, 26 March. The Candlelight concerts in Rome had nothing on sale after 11 March 2027, so later dates may still be added.

Book in this order. First the hotel, so that you can choose one within a walk of the Vatican or the Colosseum. Then the Vatican Museums, because the week has only six open days and two of them, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, sit right before a two day closure. Then the Colosseum, then the free papal tickets once the liturgies are listed.

The official tickets open on fixed windows. The Colosseum sells 30 days ahead, so Good Friday 26 March goes on sale on 24 February 2027 and Easter Sunday on 26 February. When we read the Vatican Museums' own ticket site on 10 November 2026 for our Vatican Museums tickets guide, the furthest date on sale was 48 days ahead, which would put Holy Week on sale from early February. The official museum ticket is €25 booked online and the standard Colosseum ticket is €18.

The guided visits below can be reserved with a guide included, and they are what we would book for an Easter week. Prices are for two adults, read on 13 November 2026. Start with Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel before the crowds, the earliest entry of the day in a small group, from €109 a person.

Late March in Rome is mild by day and cold at dawn. Across 21 to 31 March in the last five years the afternoon high averaged 18°C and the overnight low 8°C, and about one day in three had at least a millimetre of rain. The years vary: 2022 touched 24°C, while 2026 never got past 18°C and 2025 was wet on seven days of eleven.

That matters most for the outdoor events. The Easter Vigil ends late, the Way of the Cross starts after 9pm, and anyone wanting a good place in the square on Easter morning arrives well before the Mass, when it is closer to the overnight figure than the afternoon one. Bring a warm layer and a light waterproof, and remember that St Peter’s and the other churches expect covered shoulders and knees.

The week pulls you between two places: St Peter’s Square for the Masses, the audience and the blessing, and the Colosseum for a Good Friday morning and the Way of the Cross that evening. Both draw crowds that week, so a base you can walk from is worth having. We routed every hotel in our Rome selection on foot to each.

For the Vatican, Eitch Borromini Palazzo Pamphilj on Piazza Navona is the closest at 20 minutes to the square, and Bvlgari Hotel Roma and Donna Camilla Savelli are both 26 minutes away. For the Colosseum, Palazzo Manfredi is six minutes from the entrance and looks straight at it, and The Inn at the Roman Forum is 13 minutes away. Orient Express La Minerva, beside the Pantheon, is the balanced choice: 28 minutes to St Peter’s and 25 to the Colosseum, so neither Easter morning nor Good Friday needs a taxi.