We are travelling to Rome and other places in Italy in late October. I am going to book online Vatican tour and to make this as painless as possible (for my husband who deplores line-ups), I see there is now an evening tour with 'Apperitif'! Has anyone taken this tour? Are the Vatican booked group Guides a good option? Should we include St Peter's Basilica as well?
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
16698 posts
stewart.camem, the 'Happy Hour' buffet option offered through the Vatican doesn't include a tour guide: you explore the galleries which are open that evening on your own:
This is only available on Friday evenings though Oct. If you wish to do the basilica, you'd need to do it before an evening visit to the museums as the church would be closed when you've finished.
That said, you don't need to do a Friday night to avoid "line-ups". Every pre-purchased ticket for the museums allows you to skip the ticket lines (but not the security-check queues although those move along quickly.) Tickets are pre-purchased by time-slot availability, thus avoiding the general ticket queue. Same with guided tours offered by the Vatican. Are you specifically looking for a guided tour? And are you specifically looking to avoid line-ups or heavy crowds?
Posted by
Austin, TX, USA
224 posts
Hi Stewart,
We did the Friday night tour in October 2 years ago. It was great. I had looked at the aperitif but we decided to skip that and do the just guided tour with grabbing a snack before and after on our own. We did walk by the folks doing the aperitif, it looked really nice. I do highly recommend going at night, the crowds were less and it was nice and cool. The Vatican guide that we had was very knowledgeable and fun. Yes, you'll do the Basilica separately on your own and then you'll be there during business hours and can mail your post cards from the Vatican Post Office. Note that the gift shops are closed on Sunday but the Basilica and Post Office are open - yes, because of this, we made our infamous three trips to the Vatican, which we can laugh about now but then it wasn't funny. And since we were there three times we can say that in our experiences later Sunday afternoon was the least crowded, it was even a Sunday when they Canonized five or six new Saints.
Posted by
OP
15 posts
Thank you. We will not be there on a Friday night. One trip will be the max for us (hard enough getting my husband there even once!). We will definitely get a guided tour.
Thank you again
Chris