Vatican Museum: Some specific questions
 

I've been to the Vatican Museum several times and have always followed the prescribed route that snakes through the whole musuem. It takes hours and certain areas can be very congested and unpleasant.

This time I want to concentrate on the paintings gallery (Pinacoteca) and the Raphael rooms.

Is there any way to AVOID the rest of the place?

I don't want a tour and I don't mind standing in line (within reason). What's the best time to go for individual tickets?

And -- I'm so confused, not by lack of information but by too much! -- can you or can't you buy individual tickets in advance?

Help!

The picture gallery has a separate entrance off the courtyard so you don't need to take one of the long routes through the rest of the museum. There is no advance sales for individual tickets. The shortest lines are usually in the early afternoon.

The Pinacoteca is off one side after you get your tickets and ride the escalators up. After you finish, you go back to the regular route.

To avoid everything else, just follow the "To Sisten Chapel" sign and ignore everything else. You go through the Raphael Rooms to get to the Sistine Chapel.

As explained by others the Pinacoteca is entered separately from the route most people take to the Raphael Rooms/sistene chapel. i don't think there is any way to avoid the crowds to the Raphael rooms since most people are going there and the Sistine chapel.
As for timing, it seems the lines are very long right when the museum opens and get shorter later in the day--by early afternoon as Grinisa notes. If you go then, though, you have more limited time in the museum.
BTW, and despite its title, Michaelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King, has a lot of interesting history about Raphael and the Raphael rooms as well as the sistine chapel.

Thanks, all. I'm clear on the Pinacoteca, but would like to ask again about the Raphael rooms. The last time I was there (in 2003) I was shuttled along with the masses through the whole route -- the prisons etc. I'm somewhat claustrophobic and nearly fainted in the narrow passages.

Vt, I'm a big Ross King fan. This trip to Rome is going to have a Caravaggio theme (hence the Pinacoteca) but I have some "unfinished business" with Raphael and want to take another look. The last time we were there the room was so crowded that we had to sit on the window ledge!

I really wish the Vatican Museum would introduce no-tour group days, even at a higher admission rate. I commend their egalitarian approach, but the end result is that NO ONE gets to enjoy the art.

Marmot--Our experience with the Raphael rooms in early March was that they were very crowded, worse than the Sistine Chapel where we could sit at the side in different parts of the chapel. The whole crowd entering the museum and heading toward the Sistine Chapel goes through the Raphael rooms and there are lots of tour groups with guides pushing their way past to point out various points in the frescoes. I was also quite frustrated at not being able to see the Nicholas V chapel with the Fra Angelico frescoes at all well (the room is roped off so you can only look in from the entrance)

i don't think there is much possibility of avoiding this other than timing. Probably you would have fewer people in the Raphael rooms around mid-day.
One area with no crowds at the Sistine/Raphael rooms end of the Vatican museums was the gallery of Modern Religious Art. Our son wanted to see something there, and we enjoyed going through that area to get a break from the crowds.

Have you ever seen the Villa Farnesina? It looks fascinating and was on my wanted-to-do-but-ran-out-of-time list. I am sure there are far fewer people there than at the Vatican and you can really enjoy the frescoes.

I am assuming with your interest in Caravaggio you have read the Lost Painting, but if not, you definitely should. Your theme for the trip sounds interesting--should take you a wide variety of churches and museums.
Have a great trip.

I went in at 8:15AM with Rome-Museum.com on May 8. Cost 23E, advance reservation req'd. It is not a guided tour, you are just joining a group temporarily to take advantage of early entry. I was totally alone in the Raphael rooms, it was surreal. Not sure if this were some kind of fluke, but I will never forget it.

The Sistine Chapel was fairly crowded by 10:15AM but there was no line to get in and there were still plenty of places to sit and gaze.

Marmot, there was a wonderful article in the March 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine called "On the Trail of Caravaggio" about the "recent" increaseed interest in Caravaggio and how people trek to Italy and follow the path of his life around the country. I don't know how to get back issues off the web, but if you picked it up at your local library, I found it a great read in preparation for my trip to Rome (It's a city by city breakdown on how to do the "pilgrimage").

I'll follow this discussion closely as I have many questions about visiting the Vatican Museums too, but my trip isn't until November. Right now I'm leaning towards the early entry with Rome Museums, if that's still available when I go.

Thanks so much for the tip on Rome Museum Advance Admission. I'm leaving for Rome tonight and am all set for 8:15 admission to the Vatican.

You posters are the greatest.

I hope you have a great trip and will be interested in a trip report on your Caravaggio theme.

I second the Villa Farnesina suggestion. It is very beautiful and not crowded at all. When I was there, it was part of a field trip so we had an art historian with us but if you can get a guide there I think you would enjoy it even more.

Vivi-

I can't access the Rome-Museum or tour group you mentioned. Would you please post more inf re them?
Thank you

JaneA: www.rome-museum.com should work.

The early access to the Vatican worked out pretty well for the Sistine Chapel which was less crowded than I've ever seen it (still a lot of people though). The Raphael Rooms were a total bust as for some reason they weren't opened until 10 a.m. and the guards wouldn't let us backtrack from the Sistine Chapel so we had to go all the way around and suffer the crowds for a second time!

I think the congestion in the winding corridors, stairs and small doorways is a disaster waiting to happen. I know the laissez faire attitude is part of what makes Italy so charming but still I'd like to see better crown control at this museum as the experience can be unpleasant at best and downright dangerous at worst.

When we left at around 1 p.m. the line for general admission snaked halfway around the building -- a 3 hour wait.

Our Caravaggio quest was infinitely rewarding. In three days we were able to see about 20 works. This entailed some extensive walking and several taxi's but we covered a lot of ground and were amply compensated at lunch and dinner. :)

This is where to see Caravaggio in Rome:
The Vatican Pinateca, The Capitoline Museum, Borghese Gallery, Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Corsini Gallery, Barberini Gallery, Sant' Agostino, San Luigi, Santa Maria del Popolo. There is also a Durer exhibit at the Scuderie del Quirinal which evidently includes a Caravaggio but we didn't make it there.

The hours of entrance are (as always) completely different from what the guidebooks indicate so it's helpful to check on line.

I wasn't able to get the Francine Prose Smithsonian article on-line, but I'm a great fan of her short biography. My all time favorite Caravaggio book is "M" by Peter Robb. His analysis is quirky but fascinating.

I love everything that Ross King has written.

Marmot, I'm a big fan of the Pinacoteca, especially for the Raphael altarpieces, but many other works as well. Not to mention the fact that it feels almost like a private showing compared to the mobs outside in the corridors.

Sta Maria del Popolo is a wonder for those Caravaggios - plus the Berninis just about bowl me over.

The Scuderie del Quirinale is a terrific little museum - a modern system slipped into an antique building. The Renascimiento exhibit there 5 or 6 years ago was great.

Truly, as someone mentioned, the Faresina is a real treat for Raphael fans - and, again, not on everyone's itinerary, so can be enjoyed a bit more sanely. I hate to say it, but the throngs at the Vatican can put me off art for the day ... last time my friend and I arrived half an hour before opening and moved quickly to the Chapel. Saw it for ten minutes all by ourselves and that was a dream. Passing through again an hour later it was like the lobby of Radio City Music Hall at intermission, the crowd seemed to have no regard for where they were - neither in terms of the spiritual context nor the historical and artistic value. Just ticking it off the list, it seemed. (I know that many IN the crowd were aiming for something more, but the crowd as an entity was like a noisy machine.)

I hate knowing that now the first entries to the museums are for groups only, leaving individuals to enter after the throng has formed inside. So be it. Once again, the powers that be have failed to call for my opinion ... ;)

That's rinascimento and farNesina and it's past time for bed ...

Regarding the Rome-Museum early entry (8:15am). If I'm reading it correctly, one can go in without a guide at that time, but the first guided tour doesn't go in until 9:30.

I'm looking into tours for my two sisters (1st timers). What would you think of suggesting they use the early entry option, but use audio guides rather than join a tour group? (I'm not sure because I used a tour guide).

Jeanne, that may depend on the knowledge they already have. In fact, even reading up on the galleries before can be as useful as some tours if you have enough background to recognize the names and eras, etc.

Tours can be great, but a "general" tour has to cover so many basics, that for someone already knowledgable you can feel for a good share of it like a cook being taught the fundamentals of making toast!

I agree that reading about the galleries in advance is really helpful. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, reading Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling is a great way to prepare for seeing the Sistine Chapel and Raphael rooms

Thanks for the replies. We are all relatively informed, thanks to our Catholic schooling. I imagine they will prefer the guided tour. But I'm glad to have this option to offer them.