Guided Vatican City tour review
You can’t go to Rome and not visit Vatican City, you just can’t! It’s like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower or going to London and not seeing Big Ben – it’s gotta be done. I’m not even slightly religious, but it was still amazing. The architecture, artwork, sculptures and wealth of the place is so impressive, it’s breathtaking!
Someone had recommended doing a guided tour and booking ahead through the official Vatican website, so we did and this is definitely the way to do it. We went for the guided tour of the Vatican museums and St Peter’s Basilica so we could see the lot. It was €36 each, and so worth it even just to allow you to skip the queues! If you just rock up without having booked you will join a queue of HUNDREDS of people and wait hours. But if you book one of these tours you just arrive 30mins before your tour time and stroll in like a VIP! Aside from making you feel very smug, it also means you don’t waste half of your day in a queue.
The tour itself is really great. You start off looking at photos of the Sistine Chapel while your guide tells you all about its creation, which sounds weird but is actually really useful because you’re not allowed to talk in the chapel. (Or take pictures but I sneaked a cheeky one!) You then get a little headphone set and your guide walks you around the highlights in the grounds and museums.
The only draw back is that the whole place is insanely busy, and we actually lost our guide at one time! So if you’re not good with crowds you might find it stressful. But it really is an awe-inspiring place!
If you’re not interested in the museums then you can go inside St Peter’s Basilica without needing to pay as it’s a church, but again the queues are enormous so I’d still always recommend the tour. Plus the museums are amazing! You can visit St Peter’s Square and see the Basilica from the outside for free without needing to queue, but the inside is so amazing you’d really be missing out if you didn’t go in! Just seeing Bernini’s enormous bronze baldachin at the rear alone is worth it.
A tip that’s not in the tour – keep an eye out for the little angelic faces carved near the bottom of each column of the baldachin. Apparently a woman working with Bernini was heavily pregnant and gave birth during the project, and if you’re facing the altar with the baldachin in front of you, start at the nearest left hand column and work your way around and watch the faces changing to supposedly show a woman in pain during labour, finishing with a baby’s face! 🙂
Overall, can’t recommend this tour enough. It’s all SO worth seeing and pre-booking saves you the aggro of queueing.
