Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's Basilica Guided Tour, Rome

The Gallery of Maps, the Pietà... On this tour, we'll visit the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. The best of the Vatican!

Duration

3 hours 30 minutes.

Language

The activity takes place with a guide that speaks in English.

Included

English–speaking guide
Admission to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel
Priority access to St. Peter's Basilica

When to book

You can book up to 2 hours in advance if there are any seats left. Book now and guarantee your spot.

Supporting documents

Electronic voucher. Have it on your phone.

Sustainability

All services meet our

Pets

Not allowed.

Frequently asked questions

If you have other questions, contact us

The Gallery of Maps, the Pietà... On this tour, we'll visit the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. The best of the Vatican!

Tour Details

With an area of just 0.44 km² (0.16 mi²), Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. Despite its small size, this microstate located within Rome is home to one of the world’s most impressive artistic heritages. Are you ready to discover it?

Our comprehensive Vatican tour will begin at the scheduled time near the microstate, from where we’ll first head to the Vatican Museums.

After admiring the main highlights of its permanent collection, we’ll go to the Sistine Chapel and from there enter St. Peter’s Basilica, where we’ll conclude this tour, which lasts between 3 and 3.5 hours in total.

What Will We See?

Below, we detail what our Vatican tour will entail. On this tour, we'll visit, in this order, the following sites in the world’s smallest country:

Vatican Museums

First, we'll enter the Vatican Museums, whose art collection is one of the most important in the world. We'll begin the tour by visiting the Courtyard of the Pineapple, where we'll receive an introduction to Vatican City.

Next, we’ll head into the Pio-Clementino Museum, where we’ll see:

Laocoön and His Sons, a masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture dating from the 1st century B.C.
Roman sarcophagi and busts of emperors
The Belvedere Torso and Apollo: these works inspired Michelangelo himself
Ancient mosaics and reliefs.

The tour will continue through 3 of the most important galleries in the Vatican Museums:

Gallery of Maps: We'll see the 40 giant maps of the regions of Italy designed by the Dominican friar Ignazio Danti between 1580 and 1585, during the papacy of Gregory XIII
Gallery of Tapestries: These enormous tapestries, most of which come from Flanders, feature designs largely inspired by the works of Raphael Sanzio
Gallery of Candelabra: In addition to candelabra, we will see classical sculptures, sarcophagi, and reliefs.

Sistine Chapel

Following the guided tour of the Vatican Museums, we'll enter the Sistine Chapel. Built in the mid-15th century under Pope Sixtus IV, in the early 16th century Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to decorate this sacred space, leaving for posterity the famous paintings of the Creation of Adam and the Last Judgment.

During our visit, we'll explore the details of these paintings and discuss the papal election process, which takes place in this chapel.

St. Peter's Basilica

Finally, from the Sistine Chapel, we'll enter St. Peter's Basilica via priority access. Inside the world's largest church, we will admire two unique works:

The Pietà: An extraordinary sculpture created by Michelangelo when the artist was just 24 years old
Bernini’s Baldachin: Situated above the High Altar, it marks the burial site of Saint Peter.

The Vatican tour will last between 3 and 3.5 hours and will conclude inside the basilica, which you can continue to explore on your own after the tour ends.