Due to time restraints, I need to do my religous shopping at the Vatican before our guided tour of the museum. I've read the we are not allowed to take any bags into the Vatican museums. How safe are the checked areas for purchases? I have many requests for items, would hate to lose them. Thanks

They are very safe. They put your bag on a shelf and give you a ticket. I was a little paranoid about it, but it worked out fine.

Do I understand correctly that you cannot take ANY bags, does this mean purses and/or camera bags?

It's no problem taking small bags into the Vatican if you want to - certainly, once they passed our backpack through the x-ray machine they weren't worried about us carrying it around. Make sure that you have your shoulders and knees covered though! Although they weren't as strict in the museum as they are in St. Peter's.

We just visited the Vatican two weeks ago. We were allowed to take in our backpacks - but we did go through security which scanned them. I think you should be okay.

I'm glad to hear that bags are allowed through the Vatican. I thought I read somewhere, very clearly that they were not. Thanks for the info.