Vatican City

If you’re looking for things to do in Rome, you should definitely have a day trip to Vatican City on your list. The Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica are both well worth the time - and although the Vatican is technically its own country, you won’t even need your passport. You can, however, send a postcard or two with Vatican stamps from the Vatican post office. Keep reading for tips on visiting Vatican City, especially during the extremely busy summer tourist season. You can also jump directly to information about the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica, as well as how to get to Vatican City.

Visiting Vatican City

Even if you’re not a Catholic, there’s so much worth seeing in Vatican City that the fact that it’s the Roman Catholic Mothership can almost be considered an afterthought. (No doubt I’ll be struck down by lightning for saying that, but I think I’ll take the risk.) Popes have been collecting some of the world’s most amazing art for centuries; the Vatican Museums are so vast and so full of priceless pieces that it would easily take weeks to see it all. St. Peter’s Basilica is at its very minimum an architectural masterpiece, and awe-inspiring at best.

Get the Most Out of Your Visit With a Guided Tour

Just these two sights alone could take up an entire day - especially considering how long the lines can be to just get into the Vatican Museum - so I highly recommend taking a guided tour which combines both. That way you’ll have the most important pieces in the museum pointed out for you, and you’ll be following someone who knows his or her way around the ticket lines. Be warned that as yet there’s no real way around the long lines, so be patient and bring water (and sunscreen) - but at least if you’re with an experienced tour guide you’ll know you’re doing the best you can.

>> New in 2008 - while the lines during the peak tourist season are still long, two things introduced in 2008 should help a bit. The Vatican Museum hours were extended to 8:30-17:30 most days, and they finally introduced online ticket sales. Read more on the Vatican Museum travel guide page.

If you’ve already had your free tour of the Roman Forum, you’ve no doubt heard the pitches for that company’s tours of Vatican City. If you liked your tour guide’s style at the Forum, you can be pretty confident that you’ll get something similar from another guide with the same company at the Vatican. If you weren’t crazy about the style, try another company. Either way, it’s a good idea to take a guided tour so that you can see all the “important” stuff, not miss anything you’ll regret later, and not wander aimlessly for hours. Most tours will combine both the Vatican Museums and St. Peter’s Basilica, some with a lunch break between the two, and you probably don’t want to spend less than five hours total on such a tour. I know it sounds like a lot of time for basically two sights, but they’re huge and the time will fly. The tour I took lasted almost six hours (including a 30-minute break for lunch), and it was fantastic.

Vatican Tourist Office

To get more information on your own, there’s a tourist information office in St. Peter’s Square, just to the left of the Basilica. It’s open Monday through Saturday from 8:30am until 7:30pm. And since most of the all-day (or most of the day) tours of Vatican City take lunch breaks, if you’re going solo you might try timing it so that you’re in line at lunchtime - it’s probably still going to be long, but maybe not as long as it is at other times. I still think your better bet is to get there early, however, especially since waiting in line at lunchtime means you’re really stuck in the heat of the day, but I’m all about handing out options.

Seeing the Pope

If you’re interested in seeing the Pope, check the news to make sure he’s in town and go to Vatican City on Sunday or Wednesday. You can try your luck, especially in the summer, by showing up and seeing if there’s a crowd gathering in St. Peter’s Square (if there’s a stage set up, you know you’re in luck). If you get there before his entrance, you might even get to see him zip through the crowd in the famous Pope-mobile. To get inside the gated area, you’ll need a ticket - but you can hang around outside it and still see the Pope (from that distance he’s small, but there are jumbo screens so you’ll get to see his face). For the more devout, you can arrange for something more personal (i.e., groups of hundreds instead of thousands) by calling 06-6988-4631. That’s also the number to call to just find out the specifics of the Pope’s schedule.

Swiss Guard

Oh, and be on the lookout for the Swiss Guard, who are part of the official military of Vatican City. You can’t miss them - you just might confuse them for clowns or court jesters. Their brightly-colored outfits, complete with matching pantaloons and spats, might look ridiculous, but you do not want to piss these guys off. They might work for the Pope, but they could probably kill you with one hand.

Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums are some of the most impressive museums you’ll see anywhere. You might find that some people, once they get their ticket, make a bee-line for the last room in the whole complex, zipping by everything on the way there. That last room is the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo’s famously painted ceiling and altar wall, so it’s understandable - but if you’ve got the time, you should resist the urge to follow those bees. With a good tour guide, you’ll get a lot more out of your visit and you still won’t feel like you’re spending your whole vacation inside the museums (although it’s probably possible to do so). See the above tips for more information about tours.

Unfortunately, the museums are getting harder and harder to visit during the busy season. Lines can snake on forever, and people at the end of the lines are sometimes denied entry even after waiting for hours. Do yourself a favor - get to Vatican City early and head straight for the museum line (unless you’re taking a guided tour that meets outside the museum). In hot summer weather, remember to bring water and sunscreen, too. Also remember that modest dress is required for the museum (as well as the Basilica), so that means no bare shoulders or knees for either men or women. If you find yourself without the appropriate coverage, there are vendors around selling - I kid you not - paper clothing which you can wear over your existing attire.

>> Again, see the Vatican Museum page for more information about the newly extended hours at the museums as well as the possibility of buying tickets online!

The hours that the Vatican Museums are open varies depending on the season and day of the week, and the museums are closed on lots of religious holidays, so be sure to check in advance whether things are open and what the hours are. In general, the hours are as follows: March through October - Monday through Friday, 8:45am until 4:45pm; Saturday, 8:45am until 1:45pm. November through February - Monday through Saturday, 8:45am until 1:45pm. The museums are closed on Sundays except for the last Sunday of every month - that’s when admission is free, which might sound like a good thing, except that it’s also the day when the museum is the most crowded. The last entry is roughly 1.5 hours before closing time, and sometimes the Sistine Chapel closes a half-hour before the rest of the museum. All this is yet another reason to get up early.

I’ve also heard that although the museums open at 08:45, the early times (08:45-10:00) are restricted to approved tour groups, so if you’re not with a group you’ll be stuck waiting until after 10:00 to even start getting in.

>> Since writing this, and since I last visited the Vatican Museums myself, I’ve heard that some tour companies are able to bypass the dreaded lines - which means you are, too, as long as you book your tour with them. I’ve not personally taken any of these tours, but I’ve heard from several readers who say that if a tour company claims they can bypass the lines entirely, they probably can. When in doubt, ask lots of questions before booking your tour.

St. Peter’s Basilica

St. Peter’s Basilica, or Basilica San Pietro in Italian, is the largest church in Christendom, and flaunts that fact - on the floor of the Basilica you will see markers where the world’s other great churches would fit if they were put inside. No one ever said Catholicism wasn’t boastful, right? Whereas in the Vatican Museums you may have to put your camera away because no pictures are allowed indoors (don’t disobey - this isn’t to punish you or make you buy postcards, it’s to protect the priceless art), someone at St. Peter’s was thinking ahead - each painting in St. Peter’s isn’t really a painting at all. They’ve all been replaced by intricate mosaics, which aren’t harmed by camera flashes, so you can take all the pictures you want. And if you didn’t look closely at the mosaics, you’d never even know they weren’t paintings.

Entry into the Basilica is free, which is excellent, but if you’re not prepared with the appropriate attire you’ll be refused entry. There will be no bare shoulders or knees for either men or women, and the guards are savvy to all the tricks you might try. They’ve seen everything. It’s actually an amusing diversion to watch people get turned away and try to adjust their clothing and come back for another go. If you’re one of those people, just give up and buy the ridiculous paper clothing from one of the vendors. You’ll look silly, but at least you’ll get inside.

The hours of St. Peter’s are not nearly as confusing as the hours of the Vatican Museums. From May until September, the church is open every day from 7:00am until 7:00pm. From October through April it’s open from 7:00am until 6:00pm. If you want to see a Catholic Mass performed in the Mothership, you’re welcome to - there’s an hour-long mass performed several times a day, every day. If you can, go for an early Mass. Beyond seeing the church when most tourists are still eating breakfast, you’ll also get to see it in use and not just as something else to check off a tourist to-do list.

>> Here are some fun facts about St. Peters, too.

Getting to Vatican City

Vatican City is contained entirely within Rome’s city limits, so it’s an easy place to visit while staying in The Eternal City. To get there, take either bus #40 or bus #64 (the latter is reportedly more likely to be carrying pickpockets along with tourists), both of which stop near the Basilica; if you prefer the Metro, the nearest stops are Ottaviano (for St. Peter’s) and Cipro-Musei Vaticani (for the Vatican Museums) and they’re still about a 10-minute walk away.