Boasting some of the most significant artworks ever created, the Vatican Museums can be a daunting place to visit, and you can easily spend a day trying to see it all. Our expert guides will make sure you see all the essntial pieces and be left in awe of this wonderful collection.
Tour Highlights
- Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel
- The Raphael Rooms and School of Athens
- Ancient Sculptures, including Laocoön and Belvedere Torso
- Escorted entrance to St Peter's Basilica
Hidden Gems
- The Hall of Maps
- The Tapestry Gallery
- The Pinecone Courtyard
- Candelabra Gallery
Tour Includes
- Essential Vatican Museums experience
- Sistine Chapel tour
- Skip the lines access
- Expert, fluent English-speaking guide
- Headsets for groups of 5 or more
Important Notes
- The Raphael Rooms are part of this 3-hour itinerary. Still, on days due to crowding, timing, and direction flows of crowd traffic dictated by the Vatican Museum staff, we may be unable to make this stop within the designated time frame. If the Raphael Rooms are an absolute must for you, we suggest you book one of our more extended group tours: the Early Vatican Tour or the VIP Vatican Tour, where the Raphael Rooms will be covered.
- The Basilica of St. Peter's may be subject to unscheduled closings and late openings for religious ceremonies. We do not provide refunds for last-minute closures of St. Peter's Basilica. Your guide will still give you an introduction to the Basilica should you wish to return on your own time during your visit to Rome.
- Please note that to obtain a student discount, a valid student ID must be shown on the day of your tour. If a student does not have a valid student ID, he/she may be charged a new full ticket price by the Museums, which must be paid by you on the day of the tour.
- For reservations made less than 72 hours in advance, your tour will end in the Vatican Museums as we cannot guarantee skip the line tickets into St Peter's Basilica.
Create Your Custom Journey
Our dedicated team is here to help you design the perfect trip. We’re happy to assist every step of the way.
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Can’t make your trip? Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund, minus any ticket costs.
Itinerary
What To Expect On Your Tour
Journey Through The Vatican
Get the most out of the Vatican with skip-the-lines access.
This specially optimised itinerary is designed to allow you to get the best out of your visit to the Vatican Museums in a limited time frame, taking in the remarkable Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms and St. Peter’s Basilica entry amongst other highlights in the company of one of our expert guides. As with all our Vatican tours, you’ll enjoy skip-the-lines access to all the sites, meaning you’ll spend your precious time in the company of Michelangelo and Raphael rather than kicking your heels in the queues outside!
The Sistine Chapel
Appreciate the beauty of the Sistine Chapel
The highlight of our tour will, of course, be our visit to the Sistine Chapel, where you’ll get the chance to gaze up at Michelangelo’s ceiling as your guide explains the secrets behind Michelangelo’s masterful paintings. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains hundreds of figures, including Adam and Eve, Noah, Jonah, saints, prophets, sibyls, and the decorative nude figures known as “ignudi”. The sheer size of the fresco can make it overwhelming to look at, and it’s difficult to know where to begin. That’s why the expertise of our guides is so indispensable – they’ll reveal the meaning of Michelangelo’s masterwork, and explain the full significance of the massive scenes taken from the Old Testament Book of Genesis.
Years later, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel to decorate the altar wall with the fresco of the Last Judgement – a powerful apocalyptic vision of the End of Days. As you study the painting alongside your guide on our Sistine Chapel tour, you’ll discover why it was initially so controversial, and gain a deeper appreciation of Michelangelo’s unique genius.
The Raphael Rooms
Discover the genius of Raphael in the Raphael Rooms
Close to the Sistine Chapel is the suite of private papal apartments known as the Raphael Rooms. These exquisitely decorated rooms contain some of the finest examples of Raphael’s work, including the “School of Athens” – a group portrait of antiquity’s most famous philosophers, many of them in the guises of Raphael’s contemporaries.
On your visit to the Raphael Rooms, your guide will explain why a young painter from Urbino was chosen for such a prestigious commission, earning the admiration and envy of his peers.
The Vatican Museums
Explore the Vatican's amazing sculpture collections
Your visit to the Vatican Museums is a great opportunity to discover its remarkable collections of ancient sculpture, including the legendary Laocoon and Apollo Belvedere. These classical artworks had a profound impact on the artists of the Renaissance, and their muscular anatomies and psychological intensity strongly influenced the work of Michelangelo and Raphael. Accompanied by an expert art historian, you’ll learn all about these ancient masterpieces and gain a greater appreciation of Greek and Roman art.
On our tour you’ll also get to walk through the famous Gallery of Maps, admire the Pinecone Courtyard and visit the Belvedere Courtyard. Although it’s impossible to see the entire extent of the Vatican’s enormous collection in a few hours, our Essential Vatican Museums group tour allows you to get the most out of your visit, taking you to see a series of unmissable highlights.
St. Peter’s Basilica
St. Peter’s Basilica Self-Exploration
From the Sistine Chapel, your guide will escort you to St. Peter’s Basilica, where you can enter on your own accord, without having to wait in line.
After exiting the Sistine Chapel, you will have an expedited escort directly to the entrance of St Peter’s Basilica. Here you will be able to enter on your own accord. Your guide will explain what you can visit inside the Basilica on the walk to the entrance.
Create Your Custom Journey
Our dedicated team is here to help you design the perfect trip. We’re happy to assist every step of the way.
What Our Guests Are Saying
Guests Reviews
Unbelievable and amazing
our tour guide was amazing. She was extremely friendly and professional. We were on a time crunch and she
made our tour so special and amazing. She was great and we give her 5 stars. We would recommend her for any
tour. Thank you for giving my wife and i a life time experience.
Interesting tour of vatican museum
we had a great time visiting the vatican museum with marie letizia bruschi. Our tour was very interesting and we were able to see all of the major works of art.
Informational, beautiful, easy
the vatican and all the art. Your guide was informative and the trip was fun. I would have liked to spend more time
exploring though. Missed a lot of art
Worth the cost
we were met at our meeting spot promptly by our tour guide. He was extremely knowledgeable and kept the group going at a nice pace. It was a very thought out tour and we arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard at the sistine chapel. Skipping the lines to enter the vatican and the sistine chapel was a game changer especially in the hot month of july.
Great vatican museum tour
we had tatiana as our tour guide and she was great! She was very passionate about the vatican and was clearly well studied on everything and anything! We were there on an extremely hot summer day so all things considered it was still very enjoyable. The only reason for 4 stars is the tour said semi-private max 6 people and our group was around 13 so just a little misleading for the price.
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