Rome - Vatican Travel Strategy
 

We will be flying out of Rome Ciampino at 7.15pm and I assume we have until 2-3pm do see what we can at Vatican.

If we start really early in the morning, I feel we have decent amount of time to see Vatican.

What I would really appreciate is a strategy for seeing Vatican? If you had 4-6 hours, where would you start and what would be a good order to follow?

This is the order I cam up with:
1. St. Peter's Square
2. St. Peter's Basilica (we intend to walk up to the Dome since this opens at 7am, please correct me if I'm wrong here)
3. Vatican Museums (Raphael's Rooms, Sistine Chapel -- be here around noon hoping there wouldn't be long lines)
4. Vatican Gardens

I've heard that you can only get into the Vatican Gardens on a pre-arranged tour, so you might want to look into that if you haven't already.

I did not know that. Thanks for the heads up, missypie!

Definitely go to the Vaticans Museums first-- because you can go directly from the Sistene Chapel's back door into St. Peter's Basilica. This means you don't have to wait in that long line outside, too. Try to reserve a tour with the Vatican, which is the only way you can get a confirmed entrance time. (Search this forum for the details I posted on another thread several weeks ago.)

MaureenB,

I found your post and will do exactly as you suggested. Considering that the admission fee is EUR12, getting a tour of the Musuems & Sistine Chapel for EUR21.5 is the best deal out there.

Hopefully I will get a confirmation fax back from the Vatican.

And remember the Vatican staff doesn't fax to you until about two days before your requested tour date. So have a plan where you can receive the fax. Maybe someone in the States can fax it on to you in Italy? I don't know if anyone's been able to receive a fax at their Italian hotel, but that may work, too. That is, if you're not at home to get it yourself. Mine came in at 5 a.m. on the morning I was leaving the house at 9 a.m. Whew!

Ooops! I almost missed that part about Vatican not confirming until 2 days before requested date. I think I'll have my Rome hotel's fax as my first preference and some US fax number as my 2nd preference.

All the Vatican behind the scenes tours - gardens, excavations etc have to be booked in advance with the Ufficio Scavi. They allow very limited number of tourists and have only 1 or 2 tours per day. Don;t know when you will be in Rome but you might ask your hotel to check for openings - or just go to the office (in St Pet's square) early on the day of to see if they have extras.

Small children are not allowed and you have to be able to ID yourself.

We will be in Rome on 16th and 17th Aug. With the Vatican closed on 15-16Aug, we got 17th August.

If I can get the confirmation for a guided tour, that ould be fantastic. It costs only EUR21.5 and best of all, no lines. In any case, we got nothing to lose.

When you go to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, I would not plan to do any other sightseeing that day. It takes a good 4-6 hours to really properly do them--and that is just to get an overview.

Can you tell me where I can find the tour information for the vatican and where I can send them a fax to book a tour in advance? I would like to get more info on the tour of the Musuems & Sistine Chapel for EUR21.5 that you mentioned earlier in this posting - thanks!

Indovina,

Here is the Web page with the information:

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...zi_Visite.html

Wonderful, thanks Eloise! I would of been waiting on some long lines!