I've booked a tour of the Vatican Museums, which starts at 2:30. I bought the tickets from the https://tickets.museivaticani.va/ web site, which seems to be the official Vat Museums site.
I have read online that this tour does not empty into the short cut to St Peter's. Assuming that's true, would we want to see St Peter's after the tour? Would the line be terribly long?
Or should we plan on visiting St Peter's early in the morning to avoid long lines?
Thanks.
When are you going? One thing I find helpful for places we will be visiting is to check available web cams for different days/times to get an idea of crowds. There is a webcam for St. Peter's Square. Just remember the time difference between your location and Rome!
When are you going?
Friday, 4/4 is the tour.
You could do it either way. If you get to St. Peter’s fairly early you should be able to visit the basilica, have lunch in the neighborhood between the basilica and the museum, and arrive for your tour on time. We did that when we visited in January. If you need to do something else in the morning you could go to the basilica after the tour, but make sure the closing time allows for the long walk from the museum entrance and then 1-1.5 hours in the security line.
The door to the shortcut is on the right after you leave the Sistine Chapel and your tour guide will leave the group before the chapel, so you could try hanging around and slipping into a group that’s using it, but there might not be any groups using it and you might get caught and kicked out completely.
Good luck with the trip!
You could do it either way. If you get to St. Peter’s fairly early you
should be able to visit the basilica, have lunch in the neighborhood
between the basilica and the museum, and arrive for your tour on time.
This is what we've decided to do - supposedly the light is best in the morning for pix at St Peter's, and we'll avoid the security line in the afternoon.
Thanks.
We're in Italy now, and last Monday after seeing the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel, arrived at St. Peter's. Basilica at 4 :30 and were surprised to see that the long line was gone and we had no wait to get into St. Peter's.
