Best Tour & Advice for the Vatican

You can book a guided tour or audio tour of the museums or you can visit on your own. Which you choose depends on your interest level. I've done all three and enjoy all three for different reasons. I think my favorite out of the three is to use an audio guide. You get more information than just reading the informational signage but you can go at your own pace, starting and stopping whenever you wish.

You can book tours or entry tickets at the official website:

http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?weblang=en&do

Donna

If you can get an early morning or after-hours (Friday evenings only, I think) for a tour I think you will enjoy it more than visiting during regular hours when the museums (and especially the Sistine Chapel) are packed.

We thoroughly enjoyed a Context Travel tour for 4 of us as have several groups of our friends. Having a private tour meant being able to take our time at the pace we wanted and to have all our questions answered.

We enjoyed the Pristine Sistine by Walks of Italy!

Another vote for Pristine Sistine by Walks of Italy, or another similar early morning tour with another good company. Early start, get into the museum and especially the Sistine Chapel with very few other people present, have a fine guided tour, and you finish by mid-day to do other things. Downside? (1) it means an early start, likely before your breakfast is served, and (2 you don't spend hours going through the Vatican Museum, room after room, in case you might want that.

Another vote for Walks of Italy

I second the vote for Context Travel. While the other poster mentioned a private tour, their group tours are limited to 6 people, and will go with fewer. Amazing guides... the person with whom I toured the Vatican Museums and St Peters is a PhD in art history with a focus on the Baroque period. They are little more expensive then some other group tours, but I've always found it to be worth those few extra euros.

All licensed tour guides in Rome must meet a specific standard so saying that your guide is a scholar really doesn't set them apart from the other guides, who are also scholars.

The basic requirement for all is knowing Italian, the national language. The same rule is follwed by all the EC countries. A tour guide must be able to deal with authorities, taxi drivers, hotel staff etc etc but also running a tour in the national language.

Candidates who possess a degree in Art History or Archaeology (also taken in a foreigner university) must pass a written test then present a paper/essay on any artistic/archaelogical topic as they liked.

You should book a tour based on it's content and the cost. I've not taken a bad tour in Rome yet and I've taken many. I find the official tours just as good ( a few times even better) than the higher priced third party tours, with the guides being just as knowledgeable and entertaining as the higher priced guides. The private tours mentioned above are very good but, in my opinion, they are not better than the same official tours that I've taken. I suggest you shop around until you find a tour that meets your needs regarding information, cost, duration and schedule.

Donna