EXPLORING VATICAN CITY

If you have been following us, we decided to dedicate an entire day to Vatican City on our 4 days in Rome Itinerary.

Here’s our guide to making the best of Vatican City during your visit to Rome.

EXPLORING VATICAN CITY

We planned to visit Vatican City in the early morning to see its famous museums and St. Peter’s Basilica. Since it’s such an amazing piece of art and home to numerous paintings and statues, we wanted to have a guided tour there and learn as much as we could about it. After a long search, I’ve booked a small group tour in the Vatican. And it was such a wonderful experience!

This tour provided us with a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel before it opens to the general public for the day. Beginning more than an hour before the scheduled opening time of 9:00 AM, we were able to explore the galleries of the Vatican Museums, including the Sistine Chapel in complete isolation with only our group and escort to give us company. The Vatican is so huge and filled with amazing artworks, it would be completely impossible to see it on our own.

TIP: Take a tour and skip the line (essential!): Visiting the Vatican can be quite a tumultuous experience. Some 25,000 people visit every day and I found it to be total pandemonium (even in March).

We strongly suggest making the most of your time by joining a tour so you can benefit from skip-the-line entry (the lines to get in were insane and we can’t imagine standing there for hours in the blistering sun (or rain as was the case on our visit) to get in.

Scroll below to see all the sites we visited in detail.

VATICAN MUSEUM

There is no need to express how busy the Vatican Museums were. You feel like a sardine, walking along a corridor and admiring some pretty walls and nice sculptures here and there. The point is that you follow the signs to the Sistine Chapel of course. As we are not religious at all, we had no real interest in spending too much time around. After a maze of rooms and a lot of elbows in our stomachs by other uneducated visitors, we finally made it to the famous Sistine Chapel.

We recommend you come here early and head straight for the Vatican Museum with your skip the line ticket. We cover ways to skip the lines in Rome further on in this post.

Another option is to book your tickets online directly from the Vatican, which will give you skip the line access to the Vatican Museums. If you plan on seeing the majority of the attractions in our itinerary this isn’t our recommended option, but know it is also an option.

Doors to the Vatican Museum open at 9 am, so we recommend you arrange your entry for as close to then as you can manage. The Vatican Museum gets really crowded as the day progresses, so getting here early will let you enjoy it for a while before it gets too busy. Since the tour lets you an hour before it is open to the general public – this helped us experience the Vatican museum in a small group.

Vatican Museum is without a doubt one of the best museums in Europe, treasuring so many masterpieces from the Antiquity to the Renaissance time. We especially liked mosaics and the gallery with frescoes depicting old maps of Italy. And the stories behind them – stories about artists, popes, and aristocratic families of that time.

There is loads to see in the Vatican Museums, which span 7km of exhibits, so you could spend a whole lot of time here. Our favorites include the Map Room, the Sistine Chapel, and the fabulous double helix exit stairwell, but we’re sure you’ll discover treasures of your own.

Our guide was amazing and brought the place to life with colorful stories and fascinating information about the various spaces and art, especially related to Raphael and Michelangelo.

THE SISTINE CHAPEL

The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace which is the official residence of the Pope. The Chapel was originally known as the Capella Magna and it took the name Capella Sistina from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it restored between 1477 and 1480. Today it is the site of the Papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected. However, The Sistine Chapel is mostly famous because of its beautiful frescos and its ceiling with The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, which we were amazed by, his persistence and talent.

After the frantic experience of the Vatican Museum & The Sistine Chapel, we had a well-deserved break on a bench, outside the building. We were so impressed by the number of people visiting the Vatican and its museums, that we couldn’t help but make a mental calculation of how much money tourists make for this little city-state. (we got to millions and millions and millions…a year…)

Anyway, moving forward, we got to the Piazza San Pietro. We endured another short queue for the Basilica Di San Pietro but it was worth it. This is the place where you can appreciate beautiful architecture and wonderful attention to detail. If you like renaissance architecture, this church is not something you can miss. Basilica Di San Pietro is one of the two largest churches in the world and is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines. It has been described as “holding a unique position in the Christian world” by James Lees-Milne.

ST.PETER’S BASILICA

The best place to get a one-of-a-kind view of Rome is St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is the largest church in the world, a work of incomparable beauty and the greatest achievement of Renaissance architecture. The Basilica can be approached by St. Peter’s Square (or Piazza San Pietro in Italian), at the center of which a giant ancient Egyptian obelisk was erected in 1586, and is surrounded by tall colonnades. On the steps that lead to the interior of the church stand two sublime statues depicting Saint Peter and Paul.

Once you enter inside, you are overwhelmed by the vast dimensions and the undeniably lavish decorations of the entire interior. Numerous sculptures made of marble, meticulously handcrafted paying attention to the smallest detail, decorate different parts of the basilica, such as Michelangelo’s Pietà. As the papal enclave within the city of Rome, it is the burial ground of popes and other notable people, whose tombs are considered exceptional works of art. Moving on and approaching the Papal Altar, you can see the central feature, the baldachin over the altar, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

As one of Rome’s main attractions, it is the most famous destination for tourists from all over the world. From the very entrance to the staircase with its 551 steps that lead to the Dome, people closely surround you to the point you can barely move. However, once you get at the top of the dome, you get immediately carried away by the view, right where you gaze down to the city that stretches out to the horizon.

All these features are what make St. Peter’s Basilica the jewel of Rome. It combines religion, history, and architecture and forms the center of the civilized world, where artistic and spiritual excellence can bring you a step closer to the Divine.

Tip 1: If you are just like us and cannot stand in what seems like endless lines, I recommend heading straight to the ticket office (just follow the sign that says “Cupola”) and buy a ticket to the top.

Tip 2: If you are brave and fit enough, you should definitely climb on foot. Nevertheless, for just a few more euros, you can take the elevator to the interior terrace (the base of the dome) and then climb the rest, thus 320 steps. Well, it might not seem like a huge difference, but it is a decision you have to make.

Looking at the Basilica, we were overwhelmed with the feeling of appreciation and respect for all the people working on those masterpieces we’ve just seen. Standing there and looking to the sky just cleared from the rainy clouds really gave me the feeling we were standing in a special sacred place. It was one of the moments we will remember forever!

Having finished with the Vatican City, we went for a walk on the small streets of Rome. We stopped to have some Gelato and it was divine. You haven’t visited Rome until you experienced their gelato.