Stories of the Vatican Skip-the-line Tour, Vatican City

This 3-hour Vatican Tour is led by an expert guide who will share stories you won't hear anywhere else! Visit the highlights of the Vatican Museums with a small group.

Highlights:

• Visitthe Vatican Museums

• Learn about many interesting stories you will never hear anywhere else

Includes:

• Skip-the-line access to the Vatican Museums

• A guide
  

Not included:

• Hotel pick-up and drop-off

• Transportation

A typical itinerary inside the Vatican Museums includes the Pavilion of the Carriages, home to everything from centuries old horse-drawn carriages to vintage and modern cars really used by Popes past and present. You'll visit the Pinecone Courtyard, the Hall of the Maps (the "Oval Office" of the Pope centuries ago), the Gallery of the Tapestries, the Pinacoteca, Belvedere Courtyard, Room of the Muses, the Round Room and Candelabra Gallery. This courtyard gets its name from the enormous bronze Pinecone sculpture that dominates it.

The Vatican Museums contains some modern art as well, including this famous sculpture: Sphere within a Sphere. Variations of this sculpture can be found in many settings around the world. The most famous wing of the Vatican Museums, the Pio Clementino museum, contains much of the Museum's most important highlights.

Your guide will take you through the Room of the Animals, where you can spot the life-like statues of fauna from around the world. Head to the Octagonal Courtyard, where a small fountain trickles in the background of famous statues like the Laocoonte and Apollo Belvedere.

Don't forget to look at the Candelabra Gallery, master painters decorated these ceilings to create the illusion of a 3D effect centuries ago. Head with your guide to the Gallery of the Maps and get a perspective of the world how it was five centuries ago. These exquisitely detailed, hand-painted giant maps are a favorite of the Vatican Museums. See if you can find the Italian cities you have visited, or spot the nod to Christopher Columbus' journey to the Americas.

Raphael painted these rooms with incredible frescoes, originally meant for the private rooms of Pope Julius II. No guides are able to speak inside the Sistine Chapel. However, your guide will prepare you in advance for your free time inside, so you'll know what to look for. Your visit ends close to where it began, after the spiral staircase at the entrance to the Vatican Museums.