Anyone done Vatican city day trip?

Efour · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:17

Anyone been?

Going off peak so should be less queues.
How the f does it work though?
I'm seeing pre-book all in one passes, I'm reading you need to individually book time slots, it's free, it's 20 euros, sounds like a Catholic scam!

It's all a bit confusing and the actual Vatican website is awful.
Can get a hotdog and fries tour though, sounds sacrelicious.

Please in the name of Mary can you help?

jsmoke · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:19

Get a pizza party in there surely, or is hotdog enough?

Semple · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:20

I booked as the queues were enormous! Can't remember if we booked a slot - I guess we must have done!

Mason- · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:21

It's free to go into St Peters but if you want to climb to the top of the dome (definitely do it, it's amazing), first prepare for a lot of walking up stairs and secondly that costs money (but it's cheap IIRC). The queue does look massive but moves really fast, ignore all the idiots who say they'll sell you fast track or whatever they're scammers.

What I would recommend is a tour of the catacombs, it's not well known about, and you have to e-mail directly to arrange a booking but it is by far the best thing I saw in all of Rome.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/i...uffscavi_doc_gen-information_20090216_en.html

Lastly, the museums + sistine chapel. I was pretty underwhelmed by this. We kept a whole day back for this. Because they know everyone is there to see the sistine chapel they make you go through certain routes through the museum and you get to the chapel at the end. The thing is on the way you see so much grandeur, so much fantastic art, huge tapestries, huge frescos (some of them IMO were better than michaelangelos), huge paintings and then when you get to the sistine chapel it just feels like 'another room'. However it is still incredible.

For me it went in this order:

1) Catacombs tour
2) St Peters Dome
3) Inside St Peters
4) Vatican Museum
5) Sistine Chapel

e-mail like this to [email protected]

1. <x> participants
2. Name 1, Name 2
3. English
4. Date range
5. your e-mail

Kind regards,

<your name>

Efour · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:21

Thanks Mason.

We are going for 4 day inc. epithany 6th January.

Not very clever touristy wise in hindsight, but it's all booked now.

Hope they can fit us in.

craaaaaig · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:38

Prepare to be pushed and shoved endlessly

Jean-F · 8 Sep 2019 at 17:55

Reading about all the booking and queues makes me realise how old I am.
I went to Rome with my Polish girlfriend, in the late seventies I guess, one day we meandered into Piazza San Pietro and admired the church, we went in and she lit a couple of candles, persuading me to do the same.
We went out to the Piazza, and she said, “Let’s stop here for a bit.”
With my oversexed, young, (then), mind, I said, “Stop for a bit? Bit of what? Suppose Il Papa sees us, you being Catholic and all?”

ianh · 8 Sep 2019 at 18:05

Be careful of getting mixed up between groups once inside. I was on a normal guided tour, got distracted and joined a "Papal visit" queue thinking it was my original group. It didn't move for ages and when I found out why I'd already lost my original group so the Swiss guard had to escort me back to the "start" to join a new tour and were pretty grumpy about it.

Also, the Sistine Chapel ceiling looks best from right at the back of the Chapel, not directly under it.

SexyGreyFox · 8 Sep 2019 at 22:44

Get ready to see lots and lots of willy's, for some reason they are obsessed with them.
Amazingly we went about 6 years ago on the hottest day of the year and we walked straight in.

koolpc · 8 Sep 2019 at 22:54

We booked in advance. It was awesome to walk past the MASSIVE queue and walk straight in!

Going to the very top of St Peters is a must too.

Efour · 9 Sep 2019 at 04:41

Ok I'm rather scared of heights. Is it really open or excessively sheer drops

I can still do it but I just have to hold on to something.

6foot 6 inches tall, I get scared looking at my feet.

Drumroll · 9 Sep 2019 at 05:34

Mason- said:
It's free to go into St Peters but if you want to climb to the top of the dome (definitely do it, it's amazing), first prepare for a lot of walking up stairs and secondly that costs money (but it's cheap IIRC). The queue does look massive but moves really fast, ignore all the idiots who say they'll sell you fast track or whatever they're scammers.

What I would recommend is a tour of the catacombs, it's not well known about, and you have to e-mail directly to arrange a booking but it is by far the best thing I saw in all of Rome.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/i...uffscavi_doc_gen-information_20090216_en.html

Lastly, the museums + sistine chapel. I was pretty underwhelmed by this. We kept a whole day back for this. Because they know everyone is there to see the sistine chapel they make you go through certain routes through the museum and you get to the chapel at the end. The thing is on the way you see so much grandeur, so much fantastic art, huge tapestries, huge frescos (some of them IMO were better than michaelangelos), huge paintings and then when you get to the sistine chapel it just feels like 'another room'. However it is still incredible.

For me it went in this order:

1) Catacombs tour
2) St Peters Dome
3) Inside St Peters
4) Vatican Museum
5) Sistine Chapel

e-mail like this to [email protected]

1. <x> participants
2. Name 1, Name 2
3. English
4. Date range
5. your e-mail

Kind regards,

<your name>

+1. Few places you pay, others don't.
The Vatican is relatively small. Pushing, you can visit few places in Rome.

koolpc · 9 Sep 2019 at 08:57

Efour said:
Ok I'm rather scared of heights. Is it really open or excessively sheer drops

I can still do it but I just have to hold on to something.

6foot 6 inches tall, I get scared looking at my feet.

Its all caged in. Fully enclosed viewing. Dont worry as i hate heights too and felt very safe and relaxed

Raymond Lin · 9 Sep 2019 at 09:26

The space need the top just before you exit to outside of the dome where you climb up is rather small, I recall when I got there I thought to myself "some of those oversized Americans aren't never going to fit through here!"

You can see the corridor mirror the insider of the wall.

Efour · 9 Sep 2019 at 10:00

Bellissimo!

Thanks, now i can save the money having to go up! (joke)

Raymond Lin · 9 Sep 2019 at 10:09

Efour said:
Bellissimo!

Thanks, now i can save the money having to go up! (joke)

I remember going to the gate, with no plan, there are lots of people trying to sell you guided tours. Strangely enough for once we fell for it, but it turned out to be a good one. We skipped the queue, went strange in with an English speaking guide. She was actually an American studied Roman History there and it was a very good tour, worth the money to skip the queue alone. I think we got in about 10am and left around 2-3pm.