http://www.global-gallivanting.com/tips-for-visiting-the-vatican-museums-and-sistine-chapel/
everybody sez go early 7:30am. but 2:30 pm can work.
or after 5pm.
run to Sistine chapel. go straight up to dome.
must go thru museum to enter Sistine. (<--most imp. sight)
best days might be Tues-Thurs
Wed-Papal audience
museum closes 4:30-6; st pete closes 7pm
short cut corridor--> crypts below
passageway form sistene--> st. peters (door on right as you exit) skips queue
vat museum 16euro; st pete free
can photo in museum, not in sistine.
The Museums are extensive and take at least three hours to get through. It’s important to keep in mind that you won’t see the Sistine Chapel until the end of the Museums visit, and while you can jump ahead to it, that would be a pity, given the amazing works that you’d be skipping over.
ReplyDeleteTake the secret passageway from the Sistine Chapel straight into the Basilica
ReplyDeleteAfter you visit the Sistine Chapel there is a secret passageway that takes you straight into Saint Peter’s Basilica. Take it, as it saves you the hassle of leaving the Museums and walking through St. Peter’s square only to face another long line of tourists.
Note that this passageway is technically only supposed to be used by tour groups, so you might just want to hang out and wait for one to start through and walk with them!
Take the elevator halfway up to the cupola
ReplyDeleteThe view from the top of Saint Peter’s is a well worth a visit… but the 551 steps to the top can be daunting and difficult if you aren’t in shape or suffer from vertigo or claustrophobia. Seriously.
You can avoid the worst of the climb by taking an elevator halfway up and continue the rest by foot for €7. Note that you will still have to climb 320 steps and that there is only one passage for climbing up and back down, so you should skip this experience altogether if you feel uncomfortable in narrow spaces.
http://www.eurocheapo.com/blog/rome-10-ways-to-save-time-and-money-visiting-st-peters-basilica-the-vatican-museums.html
Eat before your visit
ReplyDeleteMany of the restaurants and cafés immediately surrounding the Vatican are overpriced and underwhelming. They take advantage of tourists who are hoping for a quick bite to eat before or after visiting the sights. For example, the café located just opposite the Vatican Museums “Caffe Vaticano”, is notoriously expensive and known for charging unsuspecting tourists an arm and a leg for a coffee or simple sandwich.
Instead, try one of these budget eateries near the Vatican before your visit, all within a three-minute walk from the Vatican Museums:
• Habemus Pizza (pizza by the slice)
• Duecentogradi (sandwiches)
• Fa-Bio (salads)
On Wednesdays (except for late July and August when the pope goes on vacation to Castel Gandolfo, and holds audiences there), the pope holds an audience at Saint Peters. In warmer months, it will be in the square. In colder months, it will be in an auditorium-type hall just to the left of the basilica. This means that the Vatican Museums may be slightly less crowded in the morning, but, overall, the whole area will be packed due to the tens of thousands of people who attend the papal audience.
ReplyDeleteIf you do visit the Vatican on a Wednesday when the papal audience is held in Saint Peter's Square, know that Saint Peter's Basilica will be closed until the papal audience is over.
Visiting the Vatican - What to see
ReplyDeleteThe main things most people want to see when visiting the Vatican are Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums. (Just to be clear, Michelangelo’s pietà is inside Saint Peter’s basilica, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is inside the Vatican Museums.)
You can see one and not the other. However, visiting both in a single day is very do-able. Just be aware you should not plan any other big visit (like another museum, or the Coliseum) else for that day, as you will be pretty exhausted after this.
Which to see first - The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, or St. Peter's Basilica?
ReplyDeleteWhen visiting the Vatican on your own (without a tour), and want to see both in the same day, I'd advise visiting the museums first, because they are the most intense part of the visit, and, because you can take the short passage into St. Peter's basilica directly from the Sistine Chapel.
If you visit St. Peter's basilica first, you may have to wait in very long lines to get in. Once you get out, you then have to walk all the way to the entrance of the Vatican Museums, as there is no way to get from the basilica into the Vatican Museums.
If you want to avoid waiting in line at St. Peter's Basilica, you can book this skip-the-line entry ticket with audio-guide.
Dome inside Saint Peter's Basilica
ReplyDeleteIt's very much worth visiting the Vatican dome, but you should know it's a little crowded up there, and, you should also know, you use the same staircase to go down that you use to come up…which means that as you are descending you are passing people coming up.
I say this as someone with a close relative with vertigo: you may want to avoid climbing the dome at the Vatican if you suffer from vertigo or claustrophobia. But if none of that is an issue, then do it! You'll love the views from up there, both of the church and of the surrounding city-scape.
Michelangelo's pietà inside St Peters Basilica
ReplyDeleteMy favorite piece of art at the Vatican, perhaps one of my favorite statues ever, is Michelangelo’s pietà. When visiting the Vatican, don't miss this. It’s on your right as soon as you walk into Saint Peter’s. When I visited it with my mom, she cried, saying “look at her face, it’s just about a mother’s love for her child."
If you want to visit Saint Peter’s tomb, called the “necropolis”, you must book long in advance (Click here to book this through the Vatican.) It is an archeological site, and there is a limit to how many visitors they will allow, so you should book way in advance.
ReplyDeleteNo, you cannot just see the Sistine Chapel.
ReplyDeleteTo see the Sistine Chapel, you must go into and through the entire Vatican Museums, which can take at least 2 hours. The Sistine Chapel is at the very end.
That said, If you are interested in an "Express Tour" of the Sistine Chapel, book this exclusive tour with Viator, that skips the line then beelines to the Sistine Chapel and finishes in Saint Peter's Basilica.
This tour is only 90 minutes and does not include a tour of the rest of the Vatican Museums. You do still have to walk through them, but the focus of the tour will be the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica of Saint Peter's.
Visiting the Vatican museums is absolutely worth doing in its entirety, even if you really only wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. The rest of the museums are truly wonderful as well. You have the Rafael rooms, the map room, the floor-to-ceiling tapestries, papal apartments, Etruscan art and so much more.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely suggest taking a tour. But if going on your own, I strongly recommend pre-booking your tickets.
IMPORTANT TIP:
ReplyDeleteAfter visiting the Vatican Museums, you can save yourself a lot of time by going right into Saint Peter's Basilica without waiting in any lines!
Once you have seen the Sistine Chapel, you will be in a sort of anteroom just before exiting the building. If you leave the building (exit on the left), you will then have to talk all the way around the museums’ exterior and back through Saint Peter’s square, to get to the entrance for Saint Peter’s Basilica. That walk takes about 15-20 minutes, and, you will have to wait on line to go through security again.
To avoid this, take the secret passageway (exit on the right) straight from the Sistine Chapel right to Saint Peter's basilica.
Well it’s not secret, but it’s supposed to be used only by tour groups.
But several guards I spoke with told me everyone uses it and it's fine. This walk will take about 10 minutes, but you will wind up in the basilica without having to go through security again, and without having to queue!
Booked online and visit was stress free. After Sistine chapel went to top of cupola and got down to basilica.
ReplyDeleteLing Xu · Atlanta, Georgia
ReplyDeleteHello! We have 3 days in Rome...do you think it is too much to try to do the Vatican museums, St Peters Basilica AND try to see the papal mass on the same day? Or would it be better to do them on separate days because of the crowds? Thank you for this very informative article!
Like · Reply · 1 · May 29, 2016 1:32pm
Romewise
Hello Ling, and thanks so much for visiting my site and for your kind comments! I get this question a lot.
First make sure there is a papal audience In the summer months there may not be, so check the Vatican schedule. If there is a papal audience, yes it is absolutely doable to attend the audience, and then afterwards visit the Vatican Museums and end in St. Peter's Basilica. The basilica is closed during the audience, so visiting the museums and then the basilica is the best way to visit, so you can be sure the basilica will be open. The papal audience lasts about 2 hrs, and you have to account for getting there, and also arriving early to try to get a good spot, or even a seat. So count on a four-hour morning.
A visit to the Vatican museums and the basilica is another 3-4 hours, so this is going to be a pretty intense, long and full day, but a very reqarding one. You will want to plan it well, know where to eat in between, and pre-book your Vatican Museums tickets or a tour.
For anyone with more than 3 days in Rome, I often recommend splitting up this day so it's not quite so long and tiring. But with 3 days, doing it all in one day is the best course of action! Check these pages too:
http://www.romewise.com/where-to-eat-near-vatican.html
http://www.romewise.com/vatican-museum-tours.html
http://www.romewise.com/papal-audience-tickets.html
We will be visiting Rome for around 3 hours on a Wednesday in September and through your tips found out there will be a papal audience on that morning. Would we have time to visit? Is it possible to visit Vatican square on such an occasion? And would we have time for the rest of city.... spanish steps piazza navona pantheon and coliseum? If not what would you recommend? We arrive at 8.30 till 11.30
ReplyDeleteLike · Reply · 1 · Sep 1, 2016 11:33pm
Romewise
Hi Karl and thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you like the site!
First of all, if you want to attend the Papal Audience, you will need to get tickets.
http://www.romewise.com/papal-audience-tickets.html
The audience goes from about 10:30am for around 2 hrs, ending close to 1pm. Also, to get there in plenty of time to get a seat or at least a good spot, you need to show up quite early, like 8:30am.
If you are in Rome only from 8:30 - 11:30 am, I don't think it's really going to work for you to attend the Papal Audience. It's not a lot of time to see much but with 3 hours, you could simply have a lovely walk around the center, and visit the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Piazza Navona. I have a page about visiting the highlights of Rome in one day, and you could use this as a guide to see part of it:
http://www.romewise.com/rome-highlights-in-one-day.html
There is a kind of "express route" to the Sistine Chapel from the entrance of the Vatican Museums, which skips the Pinacoteca, the Pio-Clementine Museums, the Egyptian and Etruscan wings. But you still have a lot of museum to get through before you make it to the Sistine Chapel, so even without visiting any of the above, and bee-lining to the chapel, it will still take you at least 45 minutes just to walk there quickly, without stopping to look at anything.
ReplyDeleteThird, do not take a backpack with you. You will need to check this in upon entering the museum. This can be frustrating and a waste of your time upon entering and when you leave the museum.
ReplyDeleteFifth, do not jump at the first chance to buy a Vatican museum guidebook upon entering. Many of the rooms, like the wonderful Stanze di Raffaello (Raphael Rooms) each have information display cards in various languages. This is generally good enough for most visitors.
Sixth, know how to visit the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica. Many find it is best to visit the Vatican first, entering as early as possible in the morning to avoid the queue and crowds and to then make you way to St. Peter's Basilica. There is an approximately twenty minute walk between the two attractions. By visiting St. Peter's Basilica second, you will find yourself closer to the historic city upon finishing the attractions, this can be a life saver for your feet if you planning to walk into the historic center after your visits, as so many choose to do.
Eighth, eat a decent breakfast before making the early morning trip to the Vatican Museum as the museum cafe leaves much to be desired and the cafe and restaurant scene directly around the Vatican is not Rome's best. Because, it takes some time to visit both the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica, you very well likely might not be having lunch until the early afternoon. So make sure you get plenty during your breakfast to tide you over for a while.
Ninth, a common mistake visitors make in the Vatican is to make a beeline for the Sistine Chapel and ignore the world-class art that is all around them, along the way. While this is understandable for those having to make a rushed visit to the museum, it is equally unfortunate. For example, the Stanze di Raffaello (Raphael Rooms), which are just before the Sistine Chapel, are just remarkable rooms yet so many people rush and push their way through, not paying any attention to what they are rushing past. This is a shame, as there is so much more to the Vatican Museum than just the Sistine Chapel
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187768-c177287/Italy:Vatican.Museum.Hints.On.How.To.Visit.html