Private Vatican Tour: Museums, Sistine Chapel, & St. Peter's

Meeting point

Where

Get to 91, Viale Vaticano. Look across the street and you will see the guide standing by the bus stop along the Vatican walls with a placard of your surname on it. · Open in Google Maps

Departure

08:00, 09:00, 10:00, 12:30, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00, daily except Sun; scheduled year-round (operator schedule, seats confirmed at checkout)

Return

Your tour ends in St. Peter's Square just outside the basilica. Your guide can always assist you in hailing a taxi from here.

Pickup

No hotel pickup: everyone meets at the start point

Operator

Europe Odyssey Tours di Rahul Raghavan & C.sas; booking and payment are completed on Viator

1. 1
   Vatican Museums

   Start your tour at the renowned Vatican Museums. Aside from being the home of the Pope, Vatican city is also home to the Vatican Museums, the world’s largest collection of art with 9 miles of art that could wrap around the Vatican walls 4 ½ times! It contains 54 museums, 1400 rooms, chapels, and galleries. Aside from the renowned Sistine Chapel, the museums also display the only work of Leonardo Da Vinci in Rome, St. Jerome, the Raphael Rooms, and the Pinoteca, which contains collections of the Popes, all dating back to the middle ages and are set in chronological order.

   2h · Admission included
2. 2
   Sistine Chapel

   Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is possibly the most well known masterpiece in modern day, with over 5 million visitors per year. It was a project the artist took on reluctantly because his focus was sculptures, and he would complain about the physical toll it took on his body. It is said that the design of the chapel from Pope Sixtus IV, is modeled after Solomon’s temple from the Old Testament, measuring at just larger than a professional basketball court! There are many more frescoes to admire here from other artists, including: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, Cosimo Roselli and Sandro Botticelli.

   30 min · Admission included
3. 3
   St. Peter's Basilica

   You will head through a secret entry into our last stop on the tour, St. Peter's Basilica: the largest basilica in the world, with markings inside the church to ensure every other basilica would fit inside. The curious visitor is treated to Michelangelo’s Pieta at the front, 150 mosaics, and Bernini’s baldacchino, which stands at 96 feet tall and 100,000 pounds of bronze! Surprisingly, there is only one actual painting in the basilica, and it can be spotted hanging above the Pieta. Many popes are buried in the church or are on display, but most of the popes are buried underneath the basilica including St. Peter, the first pope.

   30 min

About this tour, from the operator