Vatican in one Day
 

Hi
Planning to devote one whole day to see the Vatican.Please suggest as to what i should see and what would be a waste of time since i hv only a day.any suggestions wld be grtly appreciated.

We've done the Vatican twice now. We don't know alot about art, and the first time we tried to do it on our own. We felt cheated. Last year we went back and booked a guided tour with Scale Reale. It was wonderful. We appreciated many of the pieces we saw. It was an afternoon tour. We spent the morning wondering through the shops. However, if you plan on buying gifts, I regreted not purchasing at the gift shop inside the Vatican museum. That prices were much better, especially for rosaries.

I wouldn't especially recommend the Enjoy Rome tour of the Vatican. We waited in line well over an hour (in the rain) to get in, when I had been told (and had read) that groups went in separately from the waiting crowds. The "three hour tour" became about 1 hr. and 15 minutes, hit the obvious high points and was unsatisfying. Tour guide was a nice young American woman, former art history major.

My experience with an Enjoy Rome Vatican tour was completely different - our tour had relatively minimal waiting time, and lasted five hours in all.

we had heard that the best is to go with a guide, spend a three hour tour, doing the square, the basilica and then the museum. at the end of the museum, if you want you can leave the guide before she leaves, then wander around. We went with angeltoursrome.com and thats what we did, and we didnt take a line.

I disagree that it is best to go to the Basilica before going to the museums, as suggested by Bice. If you do that, you have to go through security to get into St. Peter's, then walk around the outside of the Vatican wall to the museum entrance and go through security at the museum.

If you start at the museums, you can exit through the tour group exit at the rear of the Sistine Chapel. This is the door to the right as you face the rear. Wait for a tour group and follow them through. This lets you out quite near the entrance to St. Peter's and you do not have to go through security a second time.

This is the route that was taken by our guide from Enjoy Rome, with whom our experience was closer to that of Will Travel than to that of kswl. I imagine much depends on the individual guide.

From our personal experience, we booked a tour through USO Rome and were very satisfied. They are a street off from eth Vatican and if you arrive at 8:30 grab some free coffee, cookies and free internet service. Our guide was lovely and we woulnd't have known quite what we were looking at so it was helpful. Even on a Tuesday in early March there were still some great pusher and shover types but after I clung onto the odd pole for dear life it was fine ;) For a first time trip it would be a good idea.