Rome If You Want To

Ignore the rumors and listen to the locals—the city is not packed because of the 2025 Jubilee

I spent a lot of January in Rome. The streets were quiet, it was easy to walk into any restaurant (yes, even Armando al Pantheon), and while I spent my days working from home and didn’t go to any museums, I heard the same story from friends—easy peasy. Meanwhile, the talk everywhere else, especially among travel professionals, has been that Rome is a no-go zone for 2025, given the Jubilee.

An empty Piazza Navona on January 10, 2025, 9:42am

For any of you who don’t know what that is, it’s basically a holy year for Catholics (starting Dec 24, 2024, and ending Jan 6, 2026), which happens every 25 years. The Vatican estimates that more than 32 million pilgrims will visit from all over the world throughout the year. The chatter about the Jubilee—mostly from people who don’t live or spend much time here—is that Rome is going to be so packed all year, as if it was Mecca during the Hajj (which is a 5-day annual event that attracts around 3 million pilgrims all at once—a very different story from an estimated 32 million over 379 days).

I received so many DMs asking if I was leaving Rome for the year—one follower even told me to check my lease, because they’d heard that many landlords were kicking out tenants in order to Airbnb apartments to Jubilee visitors. I had a drink with a hotelier in Rome, who told me that at a recent travel conference in NYC, travel specialists/agents/advisors were actually saying that they weren’t recommending Rome this year to their clients. I even saw a “what’s in/out” Instagram post from a legacy travel magazine in which an editor declared that “going to Rome is out.” I might have agreed with them on that last year, when most of the city’s monuments were covered up as they were being cleaned up for the Jubilee, but now those shrouds are gone and they’re all sparkly and beautiful. Honestly, I haven’t seen the city so quiet and easy to navigate since the pandemic. The sad truth here is that those landlords can’t actually fill all their rentals, and hotels aren’t fully booked. The pilgrims will be arriving at certain points, but it won’t be a giant surge—and they’ll be congregating in very specific places, which are easy for other visitors to avoid. Maybe it isn’t the year to come at Easter, or to try to book a private Vatican tour, but it is most definitely a year to come—because so many have decided not to.

I asked some of my friends who are really boots-on-the-ground in the city to share their opinions on visiting this year. And I hope you’ll consider adding Rome, which looks lovelier than ever, back into your itinerary.

Emily FitzRoy of Bellini Travel

If you had asked me this question four weeks ago, when nearly every major monument in Rome resembled an installation by Christo, I would have advised against Rome, especially for first-timers who deserve to see the Eternal City in all her glory. However, in record time, the city has somehow miraculously whipped off the scaffolding and shrouds (including the Trevi Fountain and Piazza Farnese), completed a new underpass for traffic so you can walk from Castel Sant’Angelo to St Peters without running the risk of being flattened by a Vespa, and polished the city’s monuments and fountains till they sparkle.

So yes, we say go to Rome, and ignore the hype surrounding overcrowding and chaos. As Bellini Travel is also celebrating our own Jubilee and 25th anniversary, albeit on a more modest level, we have over time become experts in dodging the crowds and navigating the most popular parts of Italy so that you can enjoy them in relative peace. Do remember that the majority of Jubilee visitors are Catholic pilgrims who will be focusing on the main shrines; many will be on a more modest budget than our clients, so I envisage the hotels and restaurants and experiences that we love in Italy won’t be impacted as much as the more budget-friendly options. And if you really don’t want to see another soul, then head to the Dolomites to walk and enjoy the mountain air, explore lesser known but fabulous cities such as Genoa and Turin, which have as much to offer as Venice, Florence and Rome but remain gloriously local, or explore regions like Le Marche and Abruzzo and Friuli, which deserve to be visited and rival Tuscany and Umbria in terms of landscape, food and culture.

Elizabeth Minchilli of Elizabeth’s Newsletter from Italy, author, and guide

Rome will certainly be attracting pilgrims in 2025, but I think the headlines have actually scared a lot of people off. So it’s my feeling that certain parts of Rome will actually turn out to be less crowded than usual. If you’ve got your heart set on coming to Rome, I definitely wouldn’t cancel your trip. I would, however, choose the things you are going to do and see with some care. For instance, definitely stay away from St. Peter’s and the Vatican. But there are so many other neighborhoods and small museums to explore. And I may be biased, but going on a market tour with Sophie (my daughter and business partner) is a great way to explore a real side of Rome that most tourists ignore.

Antonio Sersale, Le Sirenuse owner

I always judge the crowds in Rome by how long the line is for ice cream at Giolitti, and I can assure you that this year it is no longer than the past ones!!!

Agnes Crawford of Understanding Rome newsletter, and Rome guide

So far the Jubilee crowds haven’t yet made themselves felt, and though later in the year (especially around Easter and the Youth Jubilee in late July/early August) that almost certainly is going to change, it's worth bearing in mind that people tend to congregate in the same places. Most events are focused at the Vatican, and the Youth Jubilee will take place on the outskirts of the city at Tor Vergata. In any case, Rome has a panoply of amazing sites, and if you know where to look, avoiding crowds (even in the center of town) is very doable. I always think there’s no bad time to come to Rome, just bad ways of doing it.

Marie-Louise Sciò of Pellicano Hotels

It’s empty! And clean! Of course it’s unpredictable how it will be in high season, but it’s always packed then, anyway!

Roberto Polidori of Genco Barbiere

“The Jubilee will be an economic deal for Rome, with 35 million tourists arriving....” “Jubilee in Rome, 50 million visitors expected....” “There will be many more pilgrims, over 32 million, arriving from all over the world....”

For years, we have been hearing only proclamations and predictions like these about the 2025 Jubilee in Rome. For a long time, I’ve been telling those who ask what will happen in the Jubilee year that it will all be a big bluff of numbers and predictions. I am asked this by customers at my old barber shop, tourism sector workers, restaurateurs, and owners of houses and buildings transformed into hospitality and tourism businesses. I don't want to pretend to be a fortune teller or a genie, but as a careful observer of what happens in my splendid city, and from the privileged perch of my business in the historic center of Rome—a few steps from the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Castel Sant'Angelo and San Pietro—I can only observe that this is the first winter post-Covid with a large decline in tourism in the city. Yes, right in the year of the 35 million expected tourists! For example, the waiting times for entry to the Holy Door of St. Peter in late December/early January (a few days after its opening) did not exceed 10 minutes. It is still like this in St. Peter's Square, which remains an absolutely serene space from which to admire its beauty. Not to mention the beauty of the entire city in our always-mild climate. It’s clear that the tourist influx will increase as the warm season approaches, but it will be nothing more than normal for a city accustomed to tourism like Rome. I hope that tourism will not dip even lower this year, due to the alarmist proclamations and forecasts of a city stormed by pilgrims.

Anyway, the pilgrims will concentrate in the area of ​​St. Peter and the other three Roman basilicas to cross the Holy Door, for a maximum 3-5 days (take my word for it—I’ve lived through five jubilees). In conclusion, if you have to choose a year to visit the Eternal City, 2025 is it. And in addition to its artistic and architectural wonders, you’ll be able to find time for a visit to Michelangelo's Pietà or Bernini's Baldachin entering the Holy Door of St. Peter.

P.S. The biggest crowds ever seen in town occurred when Pope John Paul II died. In the days before the funeral, everything was concentrated in the area of St Peter's, the historical center, and Prati neighborhoods. In fact, from April 2-8 2005, more than 4 million pilgrims flocked to Rome: 21,000 people entered the Vatican Basilica every hour, 350 every minute; 13 hours was the average waiting time and 24 hours the maximum waiting time to enter St. Peter's. The queue reached 5 km. On the day of the funeral, there were 500,000 faithful in St. Peter's Square and in Via della Conciliazione for the mass, with another 600,000 people in the areas with giant screens.