The Vatican

One of the 2 must-see tours in Rome if not in all of Italy.

The best part of this tour is the skip the line access. You’ll realize this as you walk by the hundreds and hundreds of people who are already lined up at 7:30am waiting to get in at 9:00am. The hour that you have to yourself in the Galleries of Maps, Tapestries, Candelabra, not to mention the Sistine Chapel is well worth it.

In the galleries, you can stop and take pictures, letting your group walk ahead, and literally be by yourself. This allows you to get pictures of the entire artwork instead of trying to hold a camera up above dozens of other people and just getting the top half of a map or tapestry.

When in the chapel, there are maybe 40 people total with you with early access. You can stand where you want and even sit anywhere along the sides. When you go back through after the general admission has entered, you can barely get through. Unfortunately, I can’t show you pictures of the chapel as you aren’t allowed to take any on this tour. Next trip we will take a private tour and I can update then.

We started by walking through all of the galleries. I stopped and took several pictures of maps and tapestries, which I’ll include n the gallery below. At one point we stopped at a large window and were able to see the current Pope’s residence in the garden since he doesn’t live in the apartments any longer.

Here is where we made our way into the chapel. Everything in the chapel has been cleaned of the soot from the candles except one upper corner which your guide will point out to you. The difference is amazing.

After leaving the chapel we headed outside and walked through the Pinecone and Belvedere Courtyards. We were able to see the dome by the basilica from here also. I thought Pinecone was an odd name for a courtyard until I saw it.

If I remember correctly, this is when we re-entered and had to walk back down through the galleries to the Sistine Chapel so we could exit through the other side to get to the former Pope’s apartments / Raphael Rooms which are now museums. This is where you will realize that the early entry was a very good decision. To keep up, you need to move through a slow-moving mass of people. You’ll constantly be saying excuse me / scusi, but like our guide said, You don’t know anybody here, be polite, but get through. When you re-enter the Chapel you’ll be greeted with a wall of people and the guards constantly asking people to keep the right side clear for people to walk through. Again, early entry, great idea.

After the museums, we exited again and headed towards St. Peter’s Basilica. We walked around to the front where we saw the entire Piazza before us before entering. I wasn’t prepared for the scope of how large the basilica is until we entered through the large holy door. We were lucky that this was a year of the Jubilee and the holy doors were chiseled open. They seal them with cement when closed.

Be prepared for a large throng of people. Some visitors only go into the basilica. It will be hard to get a good clean picture, but if you are patient and have the time you can still get some excellent photos.

Finally, you’ll exit into Piazza San Pietro. The tour is over at this point but you may walk around as much as you like before exiting Vatican City. We stayed for another 30 minutes taking pictures and just taking in all of the architecture. It really is something to see.

No trip to Rome would be complete without visiting the Vatican. It is a place that I would definitely visit again. Whether I just go into the basilica or take the tour again, it is well worth it.

There are many restaurants around Vatican city for you have lunch after your tour. If you don’t have afternoon plans, to the east is Castel Sant’ Angelo, about a 10-minute walk. 15 minutes from there, you can visit the Pantheon. From there, it is just 4 minutes back to Piazza Navona. A great place to spend some time in the evening. If you are a Pittsburgh fan, have a drink at La Botticella, Rome’s Steelers Bar.