Visiting the Vatican Museum and especially the Sistine Chapel was high on my list of what to do in Rome, but I wasn't sure the best way to go about it. Should I do a tour? I read about so many different tour options, but I'm not usually a fan of guided tours. Plus, I was an Art History minor! I didn't need a tour guide telling me about the art. And I didn't want to be someone who just saw the highlights and ignored all the hidden treasures that a tour guide would skip over. So I braved the Vatican Museum on my own, and I'm here to tell you....
Visiting the Vatican Museum without a tour was a mistake.
If I could do it all over again, I would sign up for a tour similar to these from Viator.
Disclosure: these are affiliate links. If you decide to book a tour through one of these links, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
I did sign up for a timed entrance (this was November 2021), so I didn't have problems with long lines and didn't need to skip them. Of course, that would be very different depending on the season. Many reviews of guided tours say that skipping the line is a huge benefit.
For me, though, I wish I had taken a guided tour because the Vatican Museum is absolutely enormous! A guide would have better experience to know how to make sense of all the art in the museum and help me use my time better.
What it's like to visit on your own.
Here's my experience without a guide, and you can decide for yourself if a guided tour would be useful for you.
I had plans to really take my time and enjoy the Vatican Museum. I knew it was huge, but I wasn’t daunted. I started off in the antiquities area, enjoying the Egyptian sculptures and artifacts. Then moved on to Greek and early Roman… and it just kept going.
As much as I love art, my resolve to take it slow didn’t last long. There was just sooo much to see! And there were halls upon halls. One thing I found frustrating about the museum was that it kind of herded you along a specific path. I like to be able to skip rooms if I’m not interested. You know how the market area of Ikea is enormous and there’s a path you follow but you can find shortcuts to the Lighting section? The Vatican Museum is like that but it needs some shortcuts. I found myself being the kind of person I don’t want to be — the one just looking for the famous highlights.
The highlights, though, are worth it!
I visited Rome right around Thanksgiving, and I heard from many people that the city was not nearly as crowded as it usually is. And I appreciate that the Vatican Museum has scheduled tickets to spread out visitation. Still, though, it was really crowded and hot. And there aren’t a lot of places to take a break. So I just kept going.
After a while, I just wanted to get to the Sistine Chapel.
I rushed through the Tapestry Hall, but I fell in love with the Hall of Maps! It combines two favorite things - maps and tromp l’oeil!
Honestly, I was just ready to get to the end of the Vatican Museum because that’s where the Sistine Chapel is. But it was up some stairs, down some stairs, through some halls, up more stairs, down another hall, down another staircase, etc. It was a lot of work! I forced myself to stop and enjoy some of the more “modern” paintings along the way.
And then I finally made it to the Sistine Chapel. No photography is allowed in the chapel and there are some security guards there to enforce this, as well as to try and keep it quiet. The chapel gets quite crowded, but I found a seat on the side to rest and just look around and take in the beauty of Michelangelo’s famous ceiling and Last Judgment. I thought about the symbolism of the Vatican Museum - intentional or not - of going through this huge, overwhelming, physically demanding experience like life to get to the prize, the tranquil rest surrounded by beauty. It was worth it, but that doesn’t mean I wish there hadn’t been a shortcut straight to the chapel.
So yes, I wish I had taken a tour.
It's really hard to know if a tour would have been a better experience, but I wish I hadn't been dismissive of booking one. I had this idea that in doing a tour, I would miss out on all of the other hidden treasures at the museum. But I think that — no shade on all of the art the museum contains — the museum felt like a huge garage sale with lots of items all kind of junked together. It’s hard to sort it out and I felt overloaded by it all. A tour would have helped filter it out so I could concentrate my energy on a few significant pieces that I could have learned more about. And even though I remember studying about the Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment, the School of Athens, and of course, poor Ugolino and his children in Art History, I would have loved to learn more rather than trying to drum up some ancient knowledge I once had.
Tips for visiting the Vatican Museum
- Take a tour!
- Eat before you go.
- Use the bathroom before you go.
- Dress in layers. It can get hot in the museum (even in November), but you'll also need to be respectfully covered to enter the Sistine Chapel.
- Expect lots of walking, lots of stairs, and lots of crowds.
- Expect to be really impressed, too, because it's absolutely beautiful and rich and amazing.
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