Navigating the Vatican

There is only one entrance to the Vatican Museums. There is an exit from the Sistine Chapel that avoids the line to enter St. Peter's Basilica. In the past only guided tour groups were allowed to use it, though the guards sometimes were lenient with individual visitors. I was there last month and that exit was closed to all. I doubt anyone knows if it will be reopened in the near future. There is a more-or-less one way route through the main museum building, that forms a square with an inner courtyard. The entrance/exit and the Sistine Chapel are across from each other. So once you've taken the route with all the interestng exhibits to get to the Sistine Chapel, you then have a fairly long walk through a lot of rooms with very little to see to arrive at the exit.

The line to enter the basilica is a security line. There is no way to avoid it unless the exit from the Sistine Chapel is reopened. It's about a 15 minute walk from the entrance/exit of the museums to the entrance to the basilica.

It has been reported here on the forum just within the last few days that the exit for tour groups from the Sistine Chapel into St. Peter's is open again. It was pointed out, however, that (as of at the time of that posting), the major tour companies had not yet resumed advertising the combo tours that depend on that access route. Therefore, there was a bit of uncertainty about counting on being able to use the shortcut until some documentation of the policy is available.

We were at the Vatican last week. We had bought museum tickets ahead of time. We arrived at about 10:30 am and entered the basilica after waiting in the security line for about 20 minutes. The line looked enormous but moved quickly. We did the Rick Steves app audio tour which suited our needs perfectly. We the took the walk around the walls to the museum side and had lunch a few blocks away. Easy walk back to the museum and back through another security line. Again we followed the RS audio tour which kept us organized, educated and entertained. We did have to walk past the walls and through St Peter’s Square again to get back to our hotel but we love to walk. All in all this plan worked well for us and we were able to move at our own pace. I doubt a “skip the line” tour would have been an advantage.

Thank you, that clears things up. What we might do then is start at the Vatican on two separate mornings, devoting each one to either the museums/chapel or St. Peter's. That way we avoid both the noon crowds and the walk around the walls.

Or we could still decide to do them at once since we're in that area anyway, depending on how we feel that day and where we would go next after the Vatican. It doesn't seem like the line to the Basilica is that bad, not does it sound like there's a way to avoid other than possibly a tour, but we're not interested in that anyway.