Vatican City's sightseeing rewards pre-dawn preparation and a guide who knows the sequence. The Museums — 18 kilometres of galleries — require at minimum three hours and benefit enormously from a guide who identifies the rooms worth pausing in versus the corridors to move through purposefully. The Raphael Rooms, the Gallery of Maps, and the ancient sculpture collection are individually museum-grade experiences. The Basilica, with Michelangelo's Pietà and Bernini's baldachin, rewards a separate visit from the Museums. The dome climb to the lantern gives the best panoramic viewpoint over Rome. A small-group early-entry tour transforms the Sistine Chapel from a crowd experience into something closer to what it was designed to be. Blink and you'll miss it.