Rome: Vatican Museum

From the Colosseum and after lunch of gelato we rode the Metro to the Vatican Museum. I bought tickets for a guided tour from the Vatican’s website. I advise taking a guided tour so you will know more information about the things inside the big, big museum. The tour which included the Sistine chapel cost €31 for a duration of two hours.

We took the Metro to the Cipro station which was nearest to the Vatican Museum. The entrance to the museum is quite a distance from the Basilica. We bought a one day pass for €6 which can also be used when riding the bus. We rode the bus often and nobody checks if you have a ticket. If you have guts you can get away without paying but if they check and you don’t have a ticket you may get fined.

Cipro station

I found tips on this website invaluable when planning our visit to the Vatican and the museum. There are more pictures there on directions to get to the museum from the Cipro station. Anyway we had to climb these stairs to reach the museum.

Just follow the signs to the museum.

This entire walled area encompasses the Vatican.

Outside the entrance to the museum was a food truck with brisk business since it was the only one there selling food and ice cold water which we bought despite the high price. I spotted this Nutella & Go + Esta The. It contained cookie sticks which you dip in Nutella and tea. It’s really a complete snack on the go.

Nutella & Go + Esta The

I received an email that the Sistine Chapel will be closed at 3:00 pm that day so we went to the museum earlier hoping we can start our tour earlier. This is what it looked like at the entrance. It was so crowded.

We started our tour at the gardens.

This was the last time I wasn’t elbow to elbow with people. It was also the last time I had a breathe of fresh air.

Tigris or Arno Statue

Laocoön and his sons

This was our tour guide. He was friendly and very knowledgable. There were many, many tour groups inside and I often got left behind taking pictures. It was a good thing he had a flag and I could still hear him on the walkie talkie.

You can look up, down, left and right and it’s all fantastic artwork.

From beginning to end this was what the crowd looked like. There was no chance at all to look at the art work at leisure even though you are not part of a tour group.

Belvedere torso

I thought it was because it was summer time but our tour guide said it was this full of people all year round. It was really unbelievable! We went to several popular museums and none was as crowded as this and to think the museum was huge.

Walk, stop, walk a few steps, wait, pause, snap, snap, walk, pause.

Gallery of Tapestries

We reached the entrance to the Sistine chapel around 2:30 pm but the guards wouldn’t let us through anymore. Many people were so mad and some were even yelling at the guards to no avail. Our tour guide was so apologetic and he grabbed a book from a kiosk and showed us the picture of the ceiling of Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and explained the sections to us.

Sharon and Rochelle went back the next day and they had to pay another entrance fee, go through the crowded museum just to get to the Sistine Chapel just to see it. I couldn’t stand going through that again so I didn’t go with them.

Since we weren’t able to go to the Sistine Chapel I got to see the Vatican post office where many send a postcard from since the Vatican is an independent state and issues it’s own stamps. Many consider a postcard with a Vatican stamp a nice souvenir.