Borghese Gallery Visit Tips: Slots, Bags, Park, Getting There

Short answer. Be at the museum before your slot starts: entry is only at the start of each hour, the visit lasts 2 hours and large bags go in the cloakroom. These tips come from the museum’s visit page, its FAQ and its pages on services, accessibility and photography, which we read on 23 October 2026. The museum can change its rules, so check its site before you go.

When do I need to be there?

The museum says entry is limited and takes place only at the start of each hour. A queue forms as the hour approaches, and the museum describes the waits as generally short. We found no rule about lateness, so do not count on any tolerance and arrive before your slot starts. The visit lasts 2 hours, or 1 hour 15 minutes in the 17:45 slot, and leaving at the end of the slot is compulsory. The ticket office is open from 8:30 to 18:00. See the tickets guide for the slots and the prices, and the opening hours for the closing days. For the works, read what to see.

What can I take in?

Medium and large bags, shoppers, backpacks and luggage cannot go into the museum. Only small belt bags and pouches up to 21 by 15 cm are allowed. Backpacks, shoppers, umbrellas, selfie sticks and other objects judged by the staff must be left in the cloakroom, which takes only trolleys the size of an airline cabin bag, for the length of the visit and until space runs out. The museum cannot guarantee that it will store your luggage and is not responsible for bags that it cannot accept. It does not say whether the cloakroom is free.

The museum’s ticketing page says something stricter: that since 12 May 2024 all bags must be left, whatever their size. The two pages disagree, so the safe course is to leave everything you can and carry only the minimum.

Food and drink, water included, may not be taken in, and neither may animals, except guide dogs. The ticketing page adds that smoking is not allowed in the rooms. The museum says strollers are admitted for children up to 2 years old, but the ticketing page lists prams among the objects that are banned, so ask before you go.

Can I take photos?

We found no general ban on photography for visitors in the rooms, but we also found no general permission. The museum’s page on photography says that reproducing cultural property for personal, non-profit purposes is free if you use no tripod or flash and do not touch the work. It adds that the management can ban filming, in whole or in part, in particular circumstances and for temporary exhibitions. Selfie sticks are banned. Do not use photos from the museum for commercial purposes without asking, because the museum requires a licence for those.

Is the museum accessible?

The building is a historic villa of the early 17th century, with works on the ground floor and the first floor. The ticket office, the bookshop, the café and the toilets are on the lower level. Visitors with disabilities or reduced mobility can use the stair-lift to the left of the outer staircase of the front facade, according to the museum, while the ticketing page says it is on the right, so ask on arrival. The visit starts at the entrance at the back, at Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, and the sculpture floor can be visited entirely.

The lift to the upper floor is small and does not take large wheelchairs. The museum offers small wheelchairs to use instead of your own, and more comfortable chairs on the upper floor. Visitors with disabilities and one companion do not pay the 2 euro booking fee. For questions you can write to ga-bor.accessibilita@cultura.gov.it or call +39 06 7233753. The museum also offers tactile maps outside, and it lists free visits for visitors with disabilities with volunteers, by booking.

What services are there?

You can use the bookshop and the café without a ticket. The bookshop is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 8:30 to 19:00, and the café, with 50 seats, is open from 8:30 to 19:00. The cloakroom and the toilets are not available without a ticket. The ticketing page also mentions free Wi-Fi for visitors.

Audio guide and guided visits

The audio guide costs 5 euros and is hired at a desk behind the ticket office. It comes in English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Ukrainian, and Italian is not on the museum’s list. The museum’s own guided visits, in Italian and English, cost 8 euros on top of the ticket and last 90 minutes, with up to 15 people. The museum’s page and its ticketing page give different start times, so check them when you book.

Villa Borghese or the Galleria Borghese?

They are not the same. Villa Borghese is the park, and the museum is in the Casino nobile inside it. The museum says the park has free access, while the Galleria needs a ticket and a compulsory reservation. The park, about 80 hectares, was ceded to the City of Rome in 1903, according to the city’s heritage office, and the State kept the Casino and its collection. The museum’s FAQ gives Via Pinciana as the nearest park entrance. We could not confirm the opening hours of the park, because two city sources give different information, so we do not quote any.

Several other museums stand in the park, and each has its own tickets and hours: the Museo Pietro Canonica, the Museo Carlo Bilotti, the Casa del Cinema, the Bioparco, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. A ticket for the Galleria Borghese does not include any of them, and we found no combined ticket. We did not read their prices or hours.

How do I get to the Galleria Borghese?

The museum is at Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, inside Villa Borghese, and the entrance for visitors is at the back of the building. The museum’s own page gives the nearest bus stop as Pinciana/Museo Borghese, on Via Pinciana. We list the buses it names below. The ticketing page gives a different list of lines, so check the lines on atac.roma.it before you go.

From the Spagna metro station the museum suggests taking line A towards Anagnina to Barberini and then following the same directions. There are taxi ranks on Via Pinciana and Via Vittorio Veneto, near Villa Borghese. Parking is paid, in the blue-line spaces of Via Pinciana and the nearby streets. Inside the park, only vehicles authorised by the city may enter or stop, and we found no information on supervised car parks.

From Fiumicino airport, the Leonardo Express is a non-stop Trenitalia train to Roma Termini. According to Trenitalia it takes 32 minutes, with departures about every 15 minutes and, in some time bands, every 30. We could not confirm the fare, so check trenitalia.com. From Ciampino airport, Trenitalia’s Ciampino Airlink is a bus without intermediate stops that takes 10 minutes to Ciampino station, followed by a train to Roma Termini. Trenitalia quotes 2.70 euros for the combined trip and 1.20 euros for the bus alone. From Termini, use the buses above.

These distances are in a straight line from the museum, from OpenStreetMap coordinates, not walking routes, and we give no walking times.