I've read conflicting reports for the hours for the Sistine Chapel. One account said it closed 1.5 hours before the rest of the Vatican museums. I could find only one set of hours on the museum website with no differentiation for the Sistine.
Anyone here happen to know if they close the chapel early?
I could certainly be incorrect, but I do not believe the Sistine Chapel closes any earlier than the rest of the Museum. Hours are basically 9:00 to 6:00 (M-Sat), but you cannot enter the museum (buy a ticket) after 4:00. At 5:30 they will start to usher you out of the room you are in and not let you into another room. Maybe what you were reading was some adaptation of this.
I will say though (unless they changed the flow) that the normal route through the museum takes you through multiple galleries, winding up at the Sistine Chapel, then basically to the exit. So I would not push the Sistine Chapel until the very end of the day, you might not be allowed in.
It's a once in a lifetime experience. I just hope on the day you visit, the place is not filled with talking and camera flashing tourists like it was when we were there in 2001.
Since 2001, there has been a major cleaning of the Sistine Chapel. The company that contributed millions of euros for this improvement now owns exclusive photo rights, and the "no photos" policy is aggressively patrolled and enforced by the guards. When I was there, early morning with few other people there, a guard got right in the face of one visitor, screaming "you took two photos, delete them both right now!!!
I was there last year on the RS My Way tour of Italy. -and even several folks on our RS tour
were snapping pix.
Unbelievable!!!.
I think the guide book says you can't go back in to the museum from the Sistine, so we did it at the very end of our visit, but it was still in the morning. It was jam packed in there, felt like cattle, so not sure if the end if day might be less crowded. People were sneaking non-flash pics with their cell phones, but can't imagine it did the beauty any justice.
You can go back to other galleries of the Vatican Museums after you see the Sistine Chapel. You cannot go back into the Museums (including the Sistine Chapel) once you exit, either to Saint Peter's Basilica or to the street outside the Museums.
