Top Tips for Visiting the Vatican
What to know before you go

Planning on visiting the Vatican? Here's everything you need to know!

Visiting the Vatican - everything you need to know

Here is what you really need to know about visiting the Vatican:

• When to go? (what time of year and time of day)
• What to see? (St Peters Basilica and Vatican Museums, and which to see first)
• How to get tickets/skip the line to the Vatican museums?
• Can you just visit the Sistine Chapel? 
• Can you see the Sistine Chapel without crowds?
• How do you visit the Vatican Gardens?
• How do you visit St Peter's tomb?
• How to plan all your Vatican visits for your trip?
• How to get to the Vatican?
• Where to eat near the Vatican?

The first time I came to Rome as an adult, I missed seeing the Sistine Chapel because I had no idea the Vatican Museums closed at 2pm (long before smartphones and Google, ahem.) Luckily, the museums are now open later.

Now that I live here, I go often to Saint Peter's Basilica, Saint Peter's Square, and the Vatican Museums.

I also helped thousands of our guests plan their visits in the 17 years we ran our B&B.

Based on years of first-hand experience, I know how to tell you what to do and what not to do.

You can avoid a stressful visit to the Vatican, by reading my tips first!

Visiting the Vatican - When to go

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Visiting the Vatican - What to see

The main things to see when visiting the Vatican are Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums.

To be clear, Michelangelo’s Pietà is inside the basilica, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is inside the Vatican Museums.

You can see one and not the other.

However, visiting both in a single day is very do-able.

Just try not to plan any other big visit like another museum, or the Coloseum for that day, as you will be pretty exhausted. Instead, take a VIP Colosseum Underground Tour with Roman Forum & Palatine Hill on a separate day.

Tip! - Do you really want to visit the Vatican and Colosseum in one day? Here's how!

Which to see first - The Vatican Museums/Sistine Chapel, or St. Peter's Basilica?

When visiting Vatican City on your own (without a tour), I'd advise visiting the museums first, because they are the most intense part of the visit.

If you want to see both the Vatican Museum and Saint Peter's Basilica, I highly recommend a tour.

• Easy shortcut into Saint Peter's Basilica - Taking a tour will allow you to easily go directly from the Sistine Chapel into the basilica.
• Help taking it all in without exhausting yourself - There really is so much to absorb, and having a good guide will help you focus on the most important aspects.

If you only want to visit Saint Peter's Basilica, and not the museums, you can avoid waiting in line if you book a tour of the basilica, which is actually a great idea.

The basilica is so rich with art and history it's like visiting a museum. A museum that warrants a guided tour!

St Peter's Basilica

Saint Peter’s Basilica is a Renaissance-era church and one of the world’s largest. 

The Vatican is a basilica but not a cathedral, as it does not have its own bishop.

The main cathedral of the “Bishop of Rome”, as the pope is called, is San Giovanni in Laterano, or Saint John in Lateran.

But the pope is head of Vatican City, where he resides.

It's a little confusing isn't it? Anyway, just think of the Vatican as a huge church, with a lot to see inside.

St Peter's Dome

It's very much worth visiting the basilica's dome, but you should know it can get a little crowded up there, and there are a LOT of steps.

The first level is 231 steps, but there is an elevator option.

The second portion is another 320 steps, with no elevator option.

The dome gets narrower as you go up, so you will be climbing this part single file, and with the roof slanting over your head.

I say this as someone with a close relative with vertigo: you may want to avoid climbing the dome at the Vatican if you suffer from vertigo or claustrophobia.

But if none of that is an issue, then do it!

You'll love the views from up there, both of the church and of the surrounding city.

Michelangelo’s Pieta

My favorite piece of art inside of St Peter's Basilica is Michelangelo’s Pietà.

Actually, it may be my favorite piece of art in the world.

When you visit Saint Peter's Basilica, don't miss this.

It’s on your right as soon as you walk inside.

When I visited it with my mom, she cried, saying “look at her face, it’s just about a mother’s love for her child."

Unfortunately, someone wielding an axe once attacked it, and it’s now behind glass.

But you can still see it very well.

And take note of Mary’s face. It’s really special when you see it in person.

Vatican Grottoes - The Tombs of the Popes

Inside Saint Peter's Basilica, you can go down one level and see the area where some of the popes are buried.

Saint Peter is said to be entombed just underneath the church.

This is why many popes are also buried here. 

It's quite interesting to visit the popes' tombs, called the Vatican Grottoes  - there is a lot of history down there.

Don't worry, it's not dark or claustrophobic.

On the contrary, it's a huge open space full of light and lots to see (no photos allowed.)

To visit the Vatican Grottoes, get up close to Bernini's Baldachin and look for the entrance nearby.

It's free to visit the Vatican Grottoes.

Not to be confused with St. Peter's tomb

When people talk about visiting the Vatican grottoes, they are referring to a place where you can see the tombs of many popes (as I wrote above.)

But this is not the same as visiting the Vatican Necropolis, where St. Peter is said to be buried.

A visit to Saint Peter’s tomb, also referred to as a scavi visit, is a special and wonderful thing to do, and I highly recommend it. ("Scavi" means "excavations".)

It is a delicate archeological site, and they only take 250 people in per day, in 12-person tours at a time, so you must book way in advance. (No photos allowed.)

The Vatican Museums

This is the part about Vatican City that will take most of your time and energy.

The Vatican Museum contains the world’s largest private art collection (and just imagine that much of the art they own is not even on display!)

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Can you just see the Sistine Chapel?

No, you cannot just see the Sistine Chapel.

To see the Sistine Chapel, you must go through the entire Vatican Museums, which can take at least 2 hours if you tour it and see the highlights.

The Sistine Chapel is at the very end. 

That said, if you are interested in an "Express Tour" of the Sistine Chapel, you can book this tour that skips the line then beelines to the Sistine Chapel and finishes in Saint Peter's Basilica.

This tour is only 1 hour and 45 minutes and does not include a tour of the rest of the Vatican Museums.

You do still have to walk through them, but the focus of the tour will be the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's Basilica.

is it worth taking the time to explore the museums?

I don't mean to sound cliché but I really do believe that visiting the Vatican museums is absolutely worth doing in its entirety, even if you really only wanted to see the Sistine Chapel.

The rest of the museums are truly wonderful as well.

You have the Raphael rooms, the maps hall, the floor-to-ceiling tapestries, papal apartments, Etruscan art and so much more.

I highly suggest taking a tour to visit the museums. They will take care of getting your tickets.

But if you go your own without a tour, you could get the audio guide, or follow my instructions here for the best way to visit the Vatican Museums. And you will have to book your tickets on your own.

If you are heading to the Vatican in the morning, you could visit Saint Peter’s Basilica first, and the museums later, because the lines at the Vatican museums are more crowded in the mornings.

If you go to the Vatican Museums first, just make sure to leave enough time to visit Saint Peters while there is still some daylight, so you can enjoy the sun coming through all the stained glass.

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Want exclusive VIP Access to the Sistine Chapel?

With the below tours, you will have a really VIP, exclusive experience, and you'll get to enjoy the Sistine Chapel almost alone:

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On this exclusive tour with Walks of Italy, you will have true VIP access to the Vatican museums - literally accompanying the guard who opens all the doors to get the museums ready for visits.

You will accompany the Vatican Museums Key Master as you walk through the museums, turning on the lights, even inside the Sistine Chapel!

Watch my video to see what it's like:

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On this exclusive tour, you will get to see the Sistine Chapel after hours, with only your small group of up to 14 people.

You can watch what this is like in my video below. (In my video, we may see more rooms that are not included in the after hours tour, but the after-hours part is still amazing!)

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Skipping the line to get into the Vatican Museums

This may be the number 1 question I get about visiting Rome - How to skip the line for the Vatican Museums? In fact, it's quite simple:

• You can pre-purchase tickets to the Vatican Museums through the Vatican's website. (This means that you will not have to stand in the line waiting to buy tickets. You will, however, have to wait in a short line of others like you, who have pre-booked tickets and have to pick them up. You also still need to go through security as everyone does. So you do not entirely skip the line, but your line will be much shorter.)
• You can pre-purchase tickets to the Vatican Museums through a ticket reseller. There is usually a small surcharge for this but it can be worth it due to 1) Ease of use and/or 2) the possibility of finding tickets available here when tickets are not available on the Vatican Museums' website.
  
• You can purchase an Omnia Pass or Turbo Pass. These will also get you a tour with a guide from the Vatican Museums, as above. It’s not as simple as it sounds and you will need to be careful to understand what you are getting into. Click here to go to my page about the Roma Pass and Omnia Pass or to this page about other Rome City Passes for more details about these passes.
• You can book a tour of the Vatican Museums. The guide/tour company pre-purchases tickets for you and you enter the Vatican Museums with your guide/tour without having to wait in line.
• If you book a visit to the Vatican Gardens, skip-the-line tickets to the Vatican Museums are included!
• I do not recommend this at all, but if you have not booked tickets, and they are sold out online, and you find yourself arriving at the Vatican Museums, you will ALWAYS find touts selling you a skip-the-line ticket or tour. I don't recommend it because you cannot be sure they are legit, and if they are, you have no idea what kind of tour you are getting. I also just can't stand, in principle, to be so bombarded by these guys every time I am within a mile of Vatican City. But it can be a good option if it's your last recourse and the lines are crazy long.

Visiting the Vatican Museums with a Guide

Most Vatican City tourism consists primarily of a visit inside the Vatican Museums, and always include the Sistine Chapel.

Some also include a visit inside Saint Peter's Basilica.

You may expect a guided tour of the Vatican Museums and Basilica to last roughly three hours total.

Only licensed tour guides may give tours inside Vatican City.

To find out about the many different kinds of tours you can book, visit my page about Vatican Museum Tours, which breaks down your options between group tours, early access tours, semi-private tours and more.

How to plan all your Vatican trips during your stay

The typical way of visiting the Vatican is to spend half a day seeing the Vatican Museums and Saint Peter's Basilica.

These are both easy to fit into a typical 3-day visit to Rome.

I have found that often when people can get tickets to special things at the Vatican, like St Peters tomb (the Vatican Necropolis, or scavi), the Papal Audience, or the Vatican Gardens, they often want to also visit the Vatican Museums on the same day.

Here's my advice for visiting Vatican City when you want to see more than just the Vatican Museums:

Including the Papal Audience

How to visit the Vatican Museums and attend the Papal Audience

This is pretty common when visiting the Vatican.

Papal Audience tickets are not difficult to come by, and since it's "in the morning", many visitors assume it would be a good idea to go to the Vatican Museums right after the audience.

I don't agree.

If you are really short on time, then, you CAN go to the Vatican Museums after the Papal Audience.

It's just that this is going to make for a pretty exhausting day.

To go to the Papal audience, you need to get there by 8am to get a decent spot, let alone a seat.

The audience finishes around noon.

You'll probably want to grab at least a snack or lunch somewhere in there.

This means going inside the museums from about 2pm once you have made your way to the Vatican Museum entrance.

If you also visit St. Peter's Basilica after the museums (which is typical), that is a 3-4 hour visit.

And a very long day. (Also, if you want to climb the dome, you likely won't get there in time).

My suggestion?

If you can break these visits up over two days, I do suggest it as a better way of visiting the Vatican AND including the Papal Audience.

Including a visit to the Scavi (St Peter's tomb)

HOW TO VISIT THE VATICAN MUSEUMS AND also take a scavi tour

At the end of the scavi tour (St. Peter's tomb), you wind up inside Saint Peter's basilica.

So you will already see that.

You could also climb St. Peter's dome if you have time and energy.

Visiting the Vatican Museums takes easily 2.5 - 3 hours, and that does not include the time it takes GETTING there once you leave the basilica.

If you are coming to the museums from St. Peter's basilica, you need to factor in about 15-20 minutes' walk to the Vatican museums entrance. This is after you've already done a 1.5 hour scavi tour, and spent time walking around one of the largest churches in the world.

So as you can see, adding the Vatican Museums makes it a pretty exhausting day.

If you need to do it all in one day, make sure to book your scavi tour first, then book your museums visit with at least 4 hours between visits.

My suggestion?

Break this up over two days.

Book the scavi tour. You have no control over when they will grant you tickets, so if you are lucky enough to get them, you can then book other things around that. 

Plan to see St. Peter's basilica (and climb the dome) on this day.

Then, book your Vatican Museums visit for another day. 

HOW TO VISIT ST PETERS TOMB, THE VATICAN MUSEUMS (SISTINE CHAPEL), AND ATTEND THE PAPAL AUDIENCE

You are definitely going to need two days.

First book the scavi visit.

Plan to visit St Peter's Basilica after that, since you will come out into the basilica after the tour anyway.

If you want to climb St Peter's dome, you will do it on this day.

This is a pretty long and full day by itself.

Then, once you get your Papal Audience tickets, book your tickets or tour of the Vatican Museums for after the audience (even if I said above I discourage doing all this in one day, at least if you don't include the basilica it's a little less tiring).

This will be a very full and long day also.

Including a visit to the Vatican Gardens

IF YOU WANT TO VISIT THE VATICAN GARDENS AND VISIT THE SCAVI (St. Peter's Tomb)

If you are able to get tickets to St. Peter's tomb (scavi) and also the Vatican Gardens, congratulations!

Here's how to include visiting the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's basilica as well.

First book the scavi visit.

Then book the Vatican Gardens tour on a different day, and plan to visit the Vatican Museums right after the gardens, as it's included in your ticket price with the gardens.

Visit St. Peter's Basilica after the scavi, again, on a different day from the Gardens/Museums.

If you want to do it all - visit the Vatican Museums, vatican gardens, papal audience, scavi tour and st peter's basilica and dome

How you plan your days fitting in these visits will depend on two things - the Papal audience, which is always Wednesday morning 10am - 12pm (although you need to get there by no later than 8am); and the time of your scavi booking (which depends on the scavi office - you cannot control this).

Once you get those two bookings, the next difficult booking to get is for the Vatican Gardens. 

So book that one around the Papal Audience and scavi tour.

Note that tours of the Vatican Gardens are at 9am or 11am.

They are also not held on the morning of the Papal Audience.

My suggestion?

I'd suggest you spread this over 3 days.

Or, to fit this into two (intense) days, try to do the scavi tour after the Papal audience, if you can get scavi tickets for the afternoon.

Then book the Vatican Gardens, Vatican Museums, and St. Peter's Basilica on a separate day.

(And climb St. Peter's dome once you are inside St. Peter's basilica if you like.)

How to Get to Vatican City

When visiting the Vatican, you have several options for how to get there. But the most important factor to consider is what you are visiting first.

How to get to the Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums entrance is on Viale Vaticano.

If you plan to take a taxi, just tell the driver "Vatican Museums".

Visiting the Vatican Museums and arriving by Metro

Otherwise, the most common way to get there is by Metro.

Rome's metro red line A has two stops, equidistant from the entrance to the museums (about a 10-12 minute walk): Ottaviano and Cipro.

The Ottaviano metro stop is the first one you will come to if you are coming from Rome's center.

When you emerge from the metro station, you just need to follow the crowd towards  Vatican City, and once you see Michelangelo's walls, follow them to the right and you will come to the entrance of the Vatican Museums.

If you are visiting the Vatican museums from the opposite direction, or if you forget to get off at Ottaviano, or, better yet, if you want to get off at the next stop to get some fabulous pizza by the slice from Bonci's Pizzarium, then you will get off at Cipro stop. 

From this stop, you cannot see the same stream of people, nor can you immediately see the Vatican City walls.

You will need to walk just a little bit until you see the walls.

Follow them until you come to the entrance.

Visiting the Vatican Museums and Arriving by Bus

Another option for arriving at the entrance of the Vatican museums is to take a bus or buses.

Many buses will get you pretty close to the entrance of the Vatican museums. These include the 492, 49, 23, and the 81.

How to Get to Saint Peter's Basilica and Square

The entrance to St. Peter's Basilica is on Saint Peter's Square.

This is about a 15-20 minute walk from the Vatican Museums, so if you are not visiting the Vatican Museums (or not visiting them first), and want to go directly to the basilica, you can still take the metro, but make sure to get off at Ottaviano, not Cipro.

From Ottaviano metro stop, St. Peter's Square is about a 15 minute walk.

Follow the crowds, but at the walls, do not make a right towards the museums, just keep going straight. 

The buses that arrive closest to St. Peter's Square include the 40 and the 64.

The 64 bus is probably the one that takes you the closest to Saint Peter's Square.

How to get to the scavi/St Peter's Tomb

If you are visiting the Vatican for an appointment to see St. Peter's tomb, the fastest and easiest way to arrive is by taxi. They can drop you right in front of the entrance where you need to go, which is at the Swiss Guard, to the left of the basilica as you face it.

If you take a bus, get the 64, as it drops you about a block away.

To take the metro, make sure to get off at Ottaviano, and give yourself about 20 minutes' walking time from there to get the the entrance of St. Peter's tomb.

Where to Eat Near the Vatican

There is no place to eat inside St Peter's Basilica or in St Peter's Square (there is a tiny snack bar on the roof of the basilica, which you can only access if you climb the dome.)

There are some cafés and fast-food options inside the Vatican Museums.

There are also fun dining options you can book, and combine with your visit to the Museums.

Otherwise, visit my page about lots of options for eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and aperitivo near the Vatican. 

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