Vatican City

St. Peter's Basilica is free (no ticket needed) but it has its own entrance with long lines. Sistine Chapel is at the end of the Vatican Museums and requires admission ticket that must be booked in advance.

Tickets for the Vatican Museums (where the Sistine is):
https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en.html\\

St Peter's is free but lines to get in can be long.

thank you!

book the Scavi tour if it is still available for the archeological site below St. Peters -- a glimpse of what purports to be St. Peter's tomb but a tour through an Etruscan or Etruscan like tomb city. One of the most memorable things we did in Rome. Our kids still talk about it and we did it about 25 years ago and they are now middle aged.

Wow that scavi tour sounds amazing! Any insight on the time it takes for that tour? Would love to combine it with our day in Vatican but am unsure how to time it. Planning on doing a guided tour once tickets are released. Would it be suggested to do the scavi tour before or after?

dkinny…I am not sure when you are going to be in Rome, but with reference to the Scavi tour…
“Due to maintenance work in the archaeological area under St. Peter, guided tours of the necropolis and tomb of St. Peter will be suspended from 17 August 2024 to 3 November 2024."

dkinny23 the 2022 Rick Steves ITALY guidebook says that the necropolis tour takes 1.5 hours. You can email at www.scavi.va and select "Excavations Office" to book the tour. I did so a few weeks ago and have not had a response, but then, I'm wanting to book at the end of this December, so maybe I'm too early.

Others on this forum and elsewhere have said that they still had to wait in line even though they had tickets. Some had to wait 1-2 hours, so you have to factor that in. The same was true of climbing the Dome.

Lindy. tickets for the scavi tour are very limited and it is somewhat random. I would keep emailing the site given until you get a response. We did it months in advance but it was long ago -- don't know now -- but with so few tickets for English tours -- or any tours, you have to be persistent and early. It closed through November for renovations and since nothing proceeds efficiently in Italy they may be reluctant to sell tickets for December until they know it will be open.

Thanks Janet. I will be persistent!

Our priest highly recommended the Scavi tour. Read the web page and it mentioned faxing (remember faxes???) the request, which is what our priest and his family did. I've tried dialing the number a bunch of times, but it has yet to answer. Guessing it is no longer in use (?)

The Scavi tour ends in the basilica. I don't remember it being 1.5 hours long but it was some time ago when we went. If you are interested, wait until you receive confirmation before purchasing entrance tickets to the Vatican. You don't want to rush.

I don’t remember it being that long either, and we only waited a few minutes past our timed entry. I was advised not to bother the office with too many emails, just be patient and wait. We went in February 2017. Things might have changed since Covid.