The Vatican

Rome's Vatican Museums encompass some of the greatest art in the world, from Roman and Egyptian antiquities to paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, to the Sistine Chapel with its amazing ceiling frescoed by Michelangelo

The intertwined conch-shell staircase at the Vatican Museums is now, since they moved the entrance next-door, merely the exit to the museums. (Photo by Andreas Tille)

Vatican Museums
Viale Vaticano (on the north side of the Vatican City walls, between where Via Santamaura and the Via Tunisi staircase hit Viale Vaticano; about a 5–10 minute walk around the walls from St. Peter's).
tel. +39-06-6988-4947
www.vatican.va
Book tickets: Select Italy or Viator.com

Open Mon–Sat 9am–6pm (last entry: 4pm)
* Most summers, also open Fridays 7–11pm (May 6–July 15); more

Open the last Sun of each month 9:30am–2pm—and it's free!... and terribly crowded

For other closed dates, see "tips" below
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Vatican tours
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Walking Tour including Sistine Chapel, Raphael's Rooms and St Peter's
• Context: Arte Vaticana: Our Vatican Tour including Sistine Chapel and St. Peters (with reservations)
• Context: Vatican Collections
• Skip the Line: Vatican in One Day
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Tickets
• Private Tour: Vatican Museums Walking Tour
• Context: Vatican for Families
• Private Viewing of the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums
• Context: Afterhours Vatican Museums Visit
• Context: Evening Vatican Tour
• Private Tour: Vatican Museums and St Peter's Art History Walking Tour
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Tour
• Skip the Line: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica Half-Day Walking Tour

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The Vatican harbors one of the world's greatest museum complexes, a series of some twelve collections and apartments whose highlights include Michelangelo's incomparable Sistine Chapel and the Raphael Rooms.

It's a good idea to get up extra early and be at the grand new monumental museum entrance (next door to the old one) before it opens—30 minutes before in summer—or be prepared to wait behind a dozen busloads of tourists.

The Map Gallery in the Vatican Museums
The Vatican Map gallery. (Photo by JoJan)In fact, you should aim to do the Vatican Museums first, St. Peter's second, since they start shooing you out the museum doors at 3:30pm most days, 1:30pm many Saturdays (and, on the last Sunday of the month when it opens its doors for free, at 12:30pm).

There are four color-coded itineraries you can follow, depending on your interests and amount of time (it would be impossible to try to see it all in one day).

Plan "A" takes about 90 minutes—it shuttles you through the Raphael Rooms to the Sistine—plan "D" takes upwards of five hours and hits most of the highlights.

Nano-Countries
Rome's greatest museum is technically not even in Italy. The Vatican is the world's second smallest sovereign state, a theocracy ruled by the pope with about 1,000 residents (some 550 of whom are Vatican citizens) living on 44 hectares of land. It's been that way ever since the 1929 Lateran Pact with Italy's government. But don't worry, your euro are still good here (though the efficient Vatican post office does use different stamps).

That begs the question: so which sovereign state is smaller than the Vatican? Interestingly enough, the smallest independent state in the world also happens to be contained within Rome.

The Order of the Knights of Malta, a charitable brotherhood and bona-fide vestige of the medieval Crusades, was booted off its namesake island in 1814 and now has its headquarters on Rome's Via dei Condotti, with other sovereign landholdings scattered across the city.

Aside from running hospitals and other good works, the Knights are perhaps most famous in Rome for the view of St. Peter's dome through the keyhole of a gate to their property on the Aventine hill.

To any tour add 30–45 minutes for waiting in lines.

My suggestion for the best short visit (2.5 hours total): Before you hop on the plan "A" route, head to the right when you get to the end of the awning-covered corridor to run quickly (20–30 minutes) through the Pinacoteca (picture gallery), which isn't included on the short itinerary but really should be.

Here are the Vatican's top sections (roughly in the order you're likely to visit them):

Pinacoteca (Painting Gallery) - An all-star painting gallery with works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio, Giotto, Titian, Fra' Angelico, and many more.
Stanze di Raffaello (Raphael Rooms) - The former private papal apartments of Julius II were frescoed by Raphael and his assistants with some of the Renaissance master's best works, including the renowned School of Athens. Also in the Papal Suites sector of the Vatican are the Borgia Apartments and the Chapel of Nicholas V...
Sistine Chapel - The iconic fingers-almost-touching detail of Michelangelo's God creating Adam takes up merely a few square inches of ceiling in a chapel 132 feet long by 46 feet wide by 70 feet tall nearly every inch of which is swathed in some of the greatest frescoes of the Renaissance.
The Pio-Clementine Museum - Some of the greatest statuary to have survived from Ancient Rome, including the Laocoön group and the Apollo Belvedere.
The Rest - The Vatican is so vast, you're not even halfway through (though your eyeballs will probably be full by this point). Other collections range from Egyptian, Etruscan, and Ethnological Museums to the to the famed Vatican Library to collections of religious art both early (2nd and 3rd century) and modern (Matisse-designed papal vestments)—and we haven't even gotten to the Vatican Gardens yet. My advice: come back two or three times.

Tips

Planning your day: Spend all day here. Two days if you can swing it. Even on a tight schedule, expect to spend pretty much one full day seeing the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's together. They're worth it. Warning: The ticket office closes 2 hours before the museum, with the last entry at 4pm.
The Vatican Museums are most crowded on Sundays ('cause they're free) and many Wednesdays ('cause in the morning St. Peter's itself is often closed for the papal audience in the piazza, so everyone who doesn't have tickets walks around the walls to kill time inside the museums, and by afternoon all the audience-goers join them).
Book ahead: You can book entry tickets ahead of time to help avoid the lines, which can last for up to an hour or so in the summer. However, this adds a €4 fee to the already steep admission of €15 at www.vatican.va. Or you can do it online via one of our partners:
- Select Italy: Vatican Museums and Sisitine Chapel
- Skip the Line: Vatican Museums Tickets
Book a Vatican tour: There are two-hour tours of the museums and Sistine Chapel available (in English usually at 10:30am) for €30–€35 per person. For more info: tel. +39-06-6988-3145 or www.vatican.va. If you prefer a private guided tour of the Vatican and its museums, book one via our partner sites Viator.com or Context Travel:
The Vatican Museums reopen Fridays evenings in summer

Since 2009, the Vatican has experimented with summer evening hours on Fridays, allowing a limited number of visitors—upon advance booking only—to wander the mooonlit galleries without the crowds.

Dates (2011): May 6–July 15, Sept 2–Oct 28

Hours: 7am to 11pm on Fridays (last entry: 9:30pm).

Cost: €15 (+€4 booking fee)

Galleries open on Friday nights:
• Sistine Chapel
• Raphael Rooms
• Pio-Clementine Museum
• Egyptian Museum
• B orgia Apartments
• Museum of Modern Reglious Art

For more: www.vatican.va.The Vatican Museums are closed Sundays—except on the last Sunday of the month...
The Vatican Museums are free on the last Sunday of each month, when they are intensely crowded and stay open until 2pm (last entry: 12:30pm). They're also free on Sept. 27 (World Tourism Day). If the Sunday falls on a church holiday, however, they're closed (see next tip).
The Vatican Museums are closed on all church holidays: Jan. 1, Jan. 6, Feb. 11, Mar. 19, Easter Sunday and Monday, May 1, May 21, June 11, June 29 (Feast of St. Peter and Paul—major Roman holiday), Aug. 14–15 (everything is closed in Rome on Aug. 15; head to Santa Maria Maggiore for mass with a "snowfall" of rose petals), Nov. 1, Dec. 8, Dec. 25 (Merry Christmas!), Dec. 26 (Santo Stefano—huge in Italy).
Note that the Vatican Museums close surprisingly early (last entry at 4pm, doors close 6pm). So see them first, then walk around the walls to visit St. Peter's.
Dress code?: Recently, the Vatican (or at least some guards) seems to have decided that you must dress "appropriately" to visit any part of Vatican City—including the museums—and not just St. Peter's, where a dress code has long applied. Err on the side of caution and make sure you arrive with no bare shoulders, knees or midriffs. (If it's hot and you want to wear a tank top around town that day, just bring a light shawl to cover your shoulders while inside; on packing the right items for an Italy trip.)
How to get to the Vatican Museums: Cipro-Musei Vaticani is the closest Metro stop (on the A line, about 5 blocks northwest of the entrance; just follow the crowds). Otherwise, bus 49 stops right in front of the museum entrance (you can catch it from Piazza Cavour, or anywhere along Via Cescenzio, which passes the very northern tip of the piazza around Castel Sant'Angelo)

St. Peter's Basilica - Capital of Christendom
Museums in Rome
Churches in Rome
An audience with the Pope
All the works by Michelangelo in Rome
Dan Brown's Angels & Demons sights in Rome
More sights in the Vatican Borgo neighborhood

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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

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The Vatican

Rome's Vatican Museums encompass some of the greatest art in the world, from Roman and Egyptian antiquities to paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, to the Sistine Chapel with its amazing ceiling frescoed by Michelangelo

Tips

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