Middle age couple. We are not religious but enjoy architecture, history and art (husband not so into art, but somewhat). My husband has ADHD and we both dislike crowds and as we call it "peopling" so we are do not want a large group. But I think a guide would help us from getting overwhelmed.
And yes, I realize the crowds can't be avoided, but we are trying for the earliest time. We will be there mid May. We want to see it all, but are most interested in seeing La Pieta and the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine Chapel is part of the Vatican Museum complex. As you already know, crowds are an issue there. You should consider an early-access tour that gets you into the museums before the general public. The Vatican offers such tours, as do several private companies. The commercial tours are more expensive. The "Pristine Sistine" tour run by Walks of Italy has consist e mtly gotten good reviews on the forum.
Michelangelo's Pieta is in St. Peter's Basilica. Some of the commercial tour companies have offered combination. Museum + Basilica tours in the past. Those tours disappeared during the pandemic. I don't know whether they've been reinstated yet. If you take a combination tour, I don't think hou'll have any free time in the Museums.
I’m in the opposite corner. If you don’t have a guide, you can go at your own pace. I like art but I get bored quickly. We’ve done the Vatican museum without a guide and it was fine. Quick enough for me and slow enough for my wife.
The Vatican Museums have an audio guide you can rent. Although I often use such guides for art museums, I did not in the case of the Vatican. I noticed there seemed to be detailed descriptions posted for the articles with audio guide icons, and I'm not sure whether the audio guide would give any information not already posted in English. Of course, for super-popular items, getting close enough to read the posted info could be a serious challenge. I have no idea how you'd manage it in the Sistine Chapel.
A curmudgeon's view: We've been to the Vatican Museum twice. The first time, we took an expensive, early morning tour. It was looooong. We followed a flag for four hours. Lots of info and exhausting. Last year, on our second trip, we booked our entry at the Vatican website and got audiotours. Due to COVID testing, (a necessary exercise on our last day there), we got a late start. At 1 pm, we breezed through the lines and got our headsets very quickly. Basically, we went where there weren't any crowds. We saw lots of areas that we hadn't seen on our first trip. If we saw something interesting, we plugged the number into the audiotour and listened specifically to that item. We had to go out and around to get into St Paul's but that was okay. On the streets outside the Vatican is where the cheap souvenirs are. Take your own headphone so you don't have to whole the audiotour up to your head the whole time.
Perhaps I'm a heretic but I find that a lot of the artwork the tour guides stop to expound upon aren't the ones that I find most compelling. La Pieta is beautiful but distant. I think the Sistine Chapel way overrated. Each time, I visit it hoping that it will speak to me but still find it crowded, loud and garish. . I think a lot of that is the masses of people. It's still worth seeing but don't expect an intimate experience. Sorry...
I went last year and we bought tickets for 9am. When we got there a little before 8:30am they let us go in and we had the Pinacoteca to ourselves. We did see that most/all of the tour groups were being ushered in the same direction, presumable to towards the Sistine Chapel. So hundreds of people all wanting a guide to "avoid the crowds" all doing the same kind of tour at the same time.
Thanks everyone. I think I might have screwed up. I bought the Prime experience through the Vatican itself. Which in itself sound good. It starts at 7:30. However I was distracted and didn't consider the fact that it does not include St Peter's which I really want to see. And if we go after we may have a long wait to get inside. I know my husband probably will not be very interested in that and unwilling to wait. I guess we will see how long it appears. And maybe come back early our last morning in Rome.
We bought tickets for a Vatican Museums tour because all the regular tickets were sold out already (my fault, I know). I presume it's okay to just go off by myself and ignore the tour? I just want to wander on my own.
Regarding the long line at St. Peter's, we were there last May and I thought that it moved pretty quickly. Once inside, the "crowd" seemed to go away. It is such a large space with a lot to see, so everyone kind of spreads out and you can choose how long to stay in one area, or move from it if it starts to get too "peoply". I don't recall if there was a guided tour available for St. Peter's, but we were able to use Rick's book and do it on our own. Definitely worth seeing!
Regarding the Vatican museum, we chose the shortest tour and still found it to be too long. The chapel is at the end, so by the time we got there, it was anticlimactic, unfortunately. We were toured-out, and there were WAY too many people in there to really appreciate it. Glad I saw it, but it's too bad they can't control the number of people that are let in at one time (I guess they do, but it's still too many). Watch "The Two Popes" instead (kidding, but it was a great movie!).
