St. Peter's visit BEFORE guided Vatican tour
 

I'm planning on booking My Vatican 2:30 pm tour (a.m. not possible) and have learned that the tour will be over at 5:30 pm but, St. Peter's closes at 6:00 pm. I'm thinking for visiting St. Peter's before the Vatican tour. Any thoughts on how long we should plan for St. Peter's AND how far/long is the Vatican museum to start the tour.

depends when you will be there but i've always seen rather lengthy and sometimes obscenely long lines to get into St Peter's - in part due to security and decency checks so plan to wait a fair amount of time in line IME

Allow 30 min for the security check at St. Peter's (I never had to wait but sometimes there are lines) and 30 to 60min for the building itsself - 60 min if you climb the dome, otherwise 30min. These are times for a quick visit, if you are deeply interested you may want to have more time.

The walk from St. Peter's to the Vatican Museum is 1km/15min.

Not sure when you will be there, but I was there last year during Christmas week.

We waited for 60 minutes in the line just for the dome/cupola. Then spent about 30-40 minutes in the dome/roof.

We also spent about one hour actually inside the basilica looking at everything.

Have a great trip!

Make sure you know WHERE is the tour commencing from, WHEN do you need to be there, and HOW long would it take you to get there on time.

Can you please tell me who you booked the tour through. We are looking to do something similair at the end of September. Thanks

I would leave 60 minutes for St Peter's, assuming you want to see the Treasury and Crypt. If you want to climb the dome leave at least 30 minutes more. As for security on the way in - I've never spend more than 10 minutes - but we do Italy in May - so the crowds aren;t that bad.

Separately, you then have to make you way from St Peter's to the Vatican Museum - and the Museum entrance is on the far side of the complex from St Peter's.

Here's how nutty we are - we are going to the Basilica one morning (because last time we were there we spent 2 hours wandering around) and then have scheduled a Vatican Museums tour for ANOTHER day altogether!
There is a lot of beautiful stuff at the Basilica, especially if you go down and see the stuff underneath and I hate to rush through it. For me, I'd say leave yourself at least 1.5 to 2 hours for that. I believe the Basilica opens very early....
Have fun
Susan

Thank you all for your thoughts.

In reply to one question, we will be booking the tour through My Vatican Tours.

We were just at the Vatican in August and waited about 10 minutes in security to get into St. Peters. We then spent about 45-60 min. there. It's a little walk to the Vatican Museums (maybe 10 minutes). We were extremely please (1) to wait in line for about 5 minutes and (2) to be in an air-conditioned building while waiting. Everything I read said to go early but we let the kids sleep in and got there about 3:00 and there were no lines. Very pleasantly surprised!

I haven't yet made a reservation for a guided Vatican museums/Sistine Chapel tour.

I'm thinking of booking with My Vatican Tours, however, would like to hear recommendations on other tour companies.