Vatican Museums audio tour

I did the audio tour. It was OK, but nothing special. I found it confusing for half way through my visit, then I figured it out and backtracked to hear more of it in the correct location. It has a lot of information points throughout the museum. Too many to listen to them all for me.

I would think that Rick's tour would have been good enough.

I would not pay for it again, but its not that big of an investment.

Enjoy!

we have only ever used the rick steves tours on our phone/ipod. in many cities across europe.. we have found them excellent!!!
the reason is 1. they are free, 2. they are long enough to explain enough of what you are looking at. this is particularly important IMO as when you are in the 'heat' of looking around with often lots of tourists to deal with , you really often don't have hours to spend listening to every last detail about a particular item.
we were lucky to get a seat in the sistine chapel, nothing could have prepared us for the crowds in the chapel and museum. it was more like a yearly sale at a major shopping center. wall to wall people pushing and not really having time to look around.

with any of the audio guides we find it best to generally 'cling to the walls' and stop and listen to the guide as appropriate, rather than stand out in the middle looking around , like a 'real tourist' waiting to get knocked over by the passing crowd. so head for the side wall in the sistine where there are seats, so you take your time to enjoy it.

hope this helps.

I am just one of many here on this forum who have experienced and praised Walks of Italy's "Pristine Sistine"Tour, which is an early morning tour that gets you into the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel before the crowds, then goes directly into St. Peter's. Especially you are in the Sistine Chapel with very few people, you can sit on the few benches, you can see the floor, you can hear yourself think as you appreciate the beauty of the room and art. Yes, it costs more, and yes, you have to get up very early (the group gathers at about 7:20 am and enters at 8:00 am, but it is a much more enjoyable experience, includes a fine guide (a trained person), and you are finished at about noon, to then experience the rest of the day in other locations. I know that other companies also offer a similar early morning Vatican tour.

Thank you all for replying. We are already planning to listen to Rick Steve's audio tour while we are there but from what I know, he does not cover the Vatican Museums. His podcast is only for the Sistine Chapel unless I am missing something. We were considering this ItalyGuides audio tour just for the purpose of getting some meaning out of the attractions in the Vatican museums. Do they have any information written down on boards throughout the museums? Or do they give a map with some information about main attractions? If so, we might just read and satisfy ourselves.

We're big fans of guidebooks many museums offer at entry-point bookshops. That way we can read what we want to along the way, and they've been terrific coffee-table references once we're home. I've re-read ours countless times! Take a few minutes to browse what the Vatican's has to offer? You don't have to get a huge, hard-cover volume; a smaller softcover version which covers the highlights should be enough unless you're a serious art/history buff.

for what its worth, we looked at the section where all the 'transport' items were,eg: cars, carriages etc, it was downstairs. there was no one else there and very interesting. it wasn't till we came upstairs to the rest of the museum that we got caught up in the crowds.
we were there in may , bought our tickets on line, so no waiting in line. and we were there as early as we could. we did not know about the early tour, very interesting.