Another Walks of Italy question. Vatican tours. Have you taken one?
 

The three to choose from are the Pristine Sistine, VIP access or Sistine Chapel Spotlight. Have any of you taken them? http://www.walksofitaly.com/tour_boo...ur_listing/6/6

Thank you!

We took Pristine Sistine in the AM a few weeks ago. Excellent! Stuart was our guide...you can read reviews of the Walks of Italy tours on Trip Advisor. We were very pleased with our tour!

A link to our T/R is below...our Pristine Sistine tour was on the second Friday, we were in Rome,toward the end of our trip if you want to scroll down and read just that part. there is a link to photos in the T/R.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-hits-back.cfm

Thank you! I am printing your report. It's a great report!

Grazie! It's the best part about posting if it is useful to some one else.

Have a great time...we were just re-hashing our trip to Rome and how we did it "right" with so much Fodorite help.

Yes, I took the Pristine Sistine tour This Thursday. - I would do that one to see the Chapel in the early morning with few people.

You have to get up early, and we took a cab from the Campo dei Fiori area to the meeting point. it was the one time I didn't notice that the taxi driver did not turn on the meter -- I was so excited to see cans early in the morning- I wasn't paying proper attention.

Cans?

Sorry. Cabs. Autocorrect! Ie, taxis.

We took an 8am tour with Italy With Us - their version of Pristine Sistine. It was worth it to spend some time in a nearly deserted Sistine Chapel. We went back through at about 11am and it was very crowded.

It was also great to see lots of the other rooms empty, esp the Map Room, as we headed for the Sistine Chapel and to grab some pics with no people in.

My wife and I are not "Tour People" We do a lot of research and tend to see what we want to see - even if we miss some things. and we certainly do not like to wake up too early -after all it IS vacation.

But I remember how miserable I was 30+ years ago with the crowds (and noisy guards) in the Sistine chapel, and vowed if I went back to "do it right"

We booked a Pristine Sistine tour for last may and it was awesome. Worth every penny to spend 30-+minutes in the Sistine Chapel in the quiet. There were maybe 3 other tour groups each-(maybe each about 10-12 people) in the whole place. We had the chance to absorb, see, hear, etc. Our guide was great.

Later in the morning when we had to double back to the Sistine Chapel to get where ever we were going next - it was a madhouse - hundreds of people, noise, chaos.

Do splurge and that this tour! I believe you will agree that it was worth every penny- even worth the hassle of getting up a little earlier than usual)

Enjoy
Steve

bocacpa, I agree with your first paragraph. I have never done the tours. But for this I just did not see how I could possibly do enough research to do it justice. And I have read too much about the crowds. So I have booked the Pristine Sistine.

Thanks to everyone for their comments!

You will not be sorry and I hope you get Stuart? Enjoy!

Bookmarking

We also took the Pristine Sistine tour last year. Our experience was exactly as others have reported.
I just had a couple of other points to add. I brought a small pair of binoculars with me. Because the chapel was so empty I was able to sit on a bench at the side of the chapel and study every panel close up. If you have the space to bring binoculars you will not regret it.
Secondly we moved out of the chapel just before the crowds started to arrive and went to the Vatican museums and found they were not too crowded as everyone else was congregating on the chapel. The early tour certainly does provide you with an advantage and is worth every penny.
While you are not allowed to take images in the chapel we do have images of the museums and St Pauls in this album of Rome. The Vatican images are number 113 through 135.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanbr...7634677664021/