The Vatican Museum and St Peter’s Basilica is one of Rome’s most popular sightseeing destinations.
Once inside the museum you’ll explore the many halls. The Vatican Museum collection houses some of the rarest and most valuable works in the history of the world. The collection spans all cultures and all ages. From the ancient Egyptian and Etruscan, Asian, Greek and Roman classics to the modern. The tour culminates at the Sistine Chapel.
Vatican Museum Tour Tickets
To visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel does require tickets. You may visit St. Peter’s Basilica without a ticket.
To avoid waiting on long lines to visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel ItalianTourism.us suggests pre-arranging your ticket to the Vatican museum to include skip the line entrance. The Vatican Museum tickets with skip the line Vatican Museum access is a good value because the lines are very long and the collection enormous making it hard to navigate without assistance.
All of the Italy tour packages on the ItalianTourism.us website that include touring the Vatican Museum include skip the line VIP entrance.
Vatican Museum Tour Options
If you would like ItalianTourism.us to arrange your visit to the Vatican Museum check out our small group guided tours or private guided tours.
Whether it is a small group Vatican tour or private Vatican tour, your Vatican tour guide will escort you through one of the most beautiful museums in the world. And we buy the Vatican tickets ahead of time so you just have to show up and enjoy your Vatican museum tour.
You may also consider a trip out to the Papal Gardens and Castel Gandolfo.
Guided Vatican Museum tours are perfect for independent Rome travelers looking for a day tour of the Vatican.
The guided museum tours all include English-speaking Vatican tour guides. A licensed Vatican tour guide will share the history and stories of each work of art so that you come away with a rich experience.
The Vatican Museum tour will be one of your Italy vacation highlights… guaranteed!
Vatican Museum Tour from Civitavecchia
ItalianTourism.us can arrange your Rome cruise port shore excursion to include a private Vatican tour. Or join one of our small group tours of the Vatican Museum.
If your Mediterranean cruise includes Civitavecchia we’ll arrange private port transfers between Rome and Civitavecchia.
Vatican Museum Halls
Some of the most important halls inside the Vatican Museum include:
Click here for virtual tour of Vatican Museum.
Vatican City Dress Code Alert
Inside the Vatican City, for both ladies and men, knees and shoulders must be covered. For men, no shorts of any kind are allowed. No exceptions are made.
This dress code is for all areas of Vatican City including the Vatican Museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Peter’s Square, and Sistine Chapel.
Vatican Museum Tour Description
The Vatican Museum is one of the most important and most beautiful museums in the world. It is full of artistic treasures and historical artifacts from the last 2000 years and is considered the finest collection of art in the world.
The Vatican museums immense collection of art was built up over centuries by the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican Museums collection includes some of the most renowned classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. Pope Julius II founded the museums about 500 years ago in the early 16th century. The Sistine Chapel and the Stanze della Segnatura decorated by Raphael are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums.
The Vatican Museum is over 1200 rooms.
Vatican Museum Tour Itinerary
The tour begins with a visit to the Vatican Museums. Once inside, you will be guided through the major galleries such as the Belvedere Courtyard which houses the ancient and classical pieces that so many artists took their inspiration from as well as the Room of the Muses, Gallery of Maps and of course the magnificent Rooms of Raphael before culminating our visit in the Sistine Chapel itself.
Before the Vatican tour enters the Sistine chapel, you will hear all about Michelangelo and his struggles in accepting and completing the work that soon became the single most recognized piece of art in the world.
After the Sistine Chapel tours continue to St Peter’s piazza and cover the history of the Vatican City State before entering the Basilica. Here we cover the main monuments such as Michelangelo’s beautiful Pieta and Dome, the Baldacchino and other works by Bernini and the Transfiguration by Raphael. Included also are the Crypt of St Peter, the Holy Altar and other monuments of artistic importance. We will end outside on the portico to talk about the Piazza created by Bernini as well as the Obelisk and the Swiss Guards.