We want to reserve a tour for the Vatican, but we are limited on time. Does anyone know of a tour that is approx. 90 minutes and covers the most important things, including the Sistine Chapel

Hi

With a good guidebook I guess you can do it on your own My wife and I took a tour last summer and I think it lasted 4-5 hours...there was a bit of a line to get in and the tour also covered St. Peter’s basilica. The Vatican museum is HUGE by the way and you can easily get lost for days there. I have posted a trip report with pictures on my homepage http://gardkarlsen.com/rome_italy.htm . Maybe you can find some useful info there.

regards
Gard
http://gardkarlsen.com - trip reports and pictures

The Vatican Museums itself offers a guided tour:

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

I've never taken it.

I can't imagine touring the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's in 90 minutes. It is HUGE! I guess you can go with a guidebook, but you will still have to stand on line, and the line can be very long. You might want to look into a tour company that helps cut some of that waiting. Icon Tours has a 2 1/2 hour Vatican Tour, but they really spent 4 hours with us. Context Tours does a 4 hour tour. Maybe you might want to hire a private tour guide for a few hours? I know there is someone mentioned a lot on the Forum who is suppose to be very good, but I don't know her minimum time frame.

Thanks! We are traveling with a 12 year old, so another reason for the short tour.

Gard, wow, your website is great. I printed out your Rome report and will take notes! We leave in 2 1/2 weeks, but it still seems like there is so much planning to do.

Gard, thanks for posting your website! I will be in Rome for the first time starting on the 8th of April, so it was neat to see so many pictures and to read your thoughts on the historical significance of all the sites you saw.

Hello April04-
Just returned from a 2 week trip to Italy. While in Rome we toured the St.Peters Basilica, the Duomo, and the Vatican museums. We thought it would take about 2-3 hours. We spent 3-4 hours in St.Peter's and the Duomo alone. That afternoon we went to the Vatican Museum/Sistien Chapel and spent another 1 1/2 hours. We did not go on any "tours" but did rent the "audio guides" at both places(definately worth it!) Make sure to check times of operation. We did not and when we got to the Vatican Museum we found that it closed that day at 4:00pm, so we skipped most of the Museum in favor of the Sistein Chapel and still spent about an hour there. Good luck and have an amazing time!!!!

April04 - When are you going to be in Rome? We might there with our teen boys about the same time.

We are doing a private tour of St Peters & The Vatican Museum with Daniella Hunt http://www.rome-tours.com/index.shtml

Ours is more than 1-1/2 hrs but since it's private she can adjust to my kids needs.

Give her an e-mail I;m sure she can work with you, she was very accomodating.

Donna