Group: Vatican Museums, St. Peter's Basilica & Sistine Chapel: No wait tour with private guide

To Qualify for Student Group pricing you must follow the following criteria.  Letter head, entry requires identification such as passport including dates of birth.

About Your Private Guided Tour:
Guiding you will be your private guide, an English-speaking art expert, whose knowledge illuminates the history behind these incomparable artworks. You group will take in the jaw-dropping extravagance of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the most famous frescoes in the world inside Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

What We Love About This Tour: 

• Taking in the artistic wonders of the Vatican Museums—including sumptuous ancient tapestries, maps, and sculptures
• Gazing at Michelangelo’s masterworks: the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel 
• Marveling at St. Peter’s Basilica, with its spectacular dome, altar, chapels, and sculptures—including Michelangelo’s sublime Pietà
• Bypassing hours-long entry queues to spend more time on art appreciation

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Tour Itinerary:

Stop 1: The Vatican Museums

After meeting your guide near the entrance to the Vatican Museums—and skipping right past the long entry lines—you’ll walk through cavernous galleries filled with ancient sculptures, ornate tapestries, beautifully preserved maps, and Etruscan antiquities. You’ll also visit Raphael’s Rooms, a quartet of sumptuous spaces whose walls and ceilings were completely covered in paintings by the 16th-century master.

Stop 2: The Sistine Chapel

The most famous frescoes in the world will greet you when you enter the jewel box that is the Sistine Chapel. Here, you’ll be surrounded by the stunning Michelangelo masterpieces that have adorned a million picture postcards—including the nine central panels of the chapel ceiling, each depicting a tale from Genesis (the most famous being The Creation of Adam). 

Stop 3: St. Peter’s Basilica

Your tour’s final destination, St. Peter’s Basilica, is both one of the world’s largest churches, and one of its most sacred Catholic sites. The grand church building, with its soaring, statuary-topped travertine walls and parabolic dome, sits atop the very spot where St. Peter was buried. You’ll see the church’s baldacchino (a twining bronze canopy that shelters the papal altar); its chapels and elaborately painted, multi-domed ceiling; and, perhaps most stirring of all, Michelangelo’s remarkable Pietà—a sculptural depiction of the Virgin Mary cradling her dying son. IMPORTANT: The Basilica is closed on Wednesdays for the Papal Audience.

What’s Included: 

• All entry fees
• A private English speaking guide 
• Special Skip-the-Line access
• Headsets that ensure you always hear your guide

Not Included:

• Hotel pick-up and drop-off
• Gratuities

Important to Know:

• Unfortunately, wheelchairs and strollers cannot be accommodated on this tour.
• Please note that photography is prohibited inside The Sistine Chapel. Non-flash photography is permitted on all other parts of the tour.
• Please note that St. Peter's Basilica is closed on Wednesdays and may be subject to last-minute closures for religious ceremonies. If this occurs, your group will instead be treated to an extended tour of the Vatican Museums. Tour refunds or discounts will not be provided.

Important to Bring:

•  A small purse or camera bag only (no backpacks or large shoulder bags). Security checks at some sites restrict the size of bags that can be brought inside.
• Clothing that covers your knees and shoulders. Entry into St. Peter’s Basilica requires adherence to these dress codes.