Is it just as good to do a tour with the Vatican itself, or should we keep shopping around for a tour company? It has been hard to find an answer to this question on various forums and websites. We are not super detail-oriented people, however would appreciate some guidance as we tour the Vatican.

My husband and I are travelling to Rome in mid-August, and I would like to make a reservation/buy tickets soon.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I don't know if you mean the actual building itself or various areas. You can buy tics for the Sistene Chapel on line. I recommend the first time of the day, run don't walk the shortcut to the Chapel and be there all by yourself. it is fabulous, otherwise extremely crowded.

Buy Scavi Tour tickets online and go underneath the basilica for an 1 1/2 tour of ancient churches, and St. Peter's bones. One of the highlights of my life.

Buy tickets for the Treasury while you're there as well.

Otherwise you could buy a great guidebook but I'd do the above versus a guide for the building. jk

You'll have to forgive me because I am a bit of a novice.

What I mean is should we go to the Vatican website (http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html) and purchase the "Vatican Museums and Saint Peter's Basilica" guided tour (it is the one that is 36 Euros), OR should we book a guided tour with a company (such as Angel Tours, or 7 Hills Tours).

I guess what I am asking is, are tours with independent companies so much more special than guided tours that we purchase through the Official Vatican Museums website?

Thanks!

If you are going to get access to MORE by buying from the Vatican site, then I'd say go with that one. If not, I think you will probably get the same information from either tour. Check to see how long each tour is and whether you get additional access to other rooms for each tour and then decide. I do highly recommend buying ahead to skip all the lines, and as someone mentioned before, the earlier you get there the less people - but in the summer that's not saying much!

Some guided tours are good and others are not. Some are very small group and they tend to be more expensive. I don't think the Vatican tour you listed spends as much time in the museums as a lot of tours (or even the Vatican's museum only tour) so it will be more of an overview. The Vatican also has audio guides you can rent if you don't want to do a tour at all.
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...i_audio01.html

Your tour entrance booked with the Vatican includes re-entry to the museum the rest of the day if you want to go back in the museum. I'm not sure that is part of other tours.

Here's another option for you to consider: On our recent trip to Rome, we elected to hire a private tour guide who tailored our visit to the Vatican Museums including the Sistine Chapel & St Peter's Basilica based on our interests. We spent more focussed time in certain areas of the museums. It was more expensive than a group tour but it met our needs perfectly! And it was fun!!! We arranged this tour before leaving home.

Good idea. Do a search for the private guides Rome thread.

It depends. If you never had trouble with directions, you can have your Vatican tour yourselves. But if you do, then go with a company. It'd be safer.

We did a walking tour with Artviva Tours http://www.italy.artviva.com. The tour ran from 2pm until approx 5:30pm (and there were only 8 people in our tour). The cost was 70euro each, which IMO was well worth it. What is great about the company is that they have a small group guarantee of a maximum of 18 persons. The tour included a well informed guide, audio headsets, reservation and entry fees for the Vatican Museums. The tour seemed slightly rushed (but the guide wanted us to see us much as possible in the short amount of time). 3 to 4 hours may not be enough for some people, but for us (a couple) it suited.

Hi does anyone know about a 5.30pm walking tour of St Peter's? The regular Viator e-mail I get had something about it tacked on to the end of their verbage about their Vatican Tour. However, I could not find a cost or anything else about it. I wrote to Viator and asked them but they denied all knowledge of it. I even sent them back their own e-mail - without any luck.