Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Private Tour

This 4 hour private tour is an extensive walking tour of Vatican City, covering the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica.

You are met at your hotel and driven directly to Vatican City, where VIP tickets reserved in advance let you skip the general admission line. The Vatican's museum complex holds one of the world's most significant collections of art and antiquities, and the Renaissance treasures of the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel are the highlight of any visit. In the Sistine Chapel, you'll see Michelangelo's ceiling frescoes of the Creation, painted between 1508 and 1512 when he was in his mid to late 30s, and the Last Judgment covering the altar wall, which he returned to paint more than 20 years later in his 60s.

After the museum tour, you walk to St. Peter's Basilica. The Piazza San Pietro and the basilica's scale are difficult to take in fully; the church, decorated in High Renaissance and Baroque style, is filled with art in gold, marble, and mosaic. Your guide points out Michelangelo's Pieta, completed when he was in his early 20s. You can also visit the Vatican grottoes, home to the tombs of the popes both ancient and modern. Behind a wall of glass lies what is believed to be the tomb of St. Peter himself, identified from excavations beneath the basilica.

After visiting Vatican City, you are brought back to your hotel.

• This tour is not available on Sundays or Holy Days, and VIP tickets require the names as shown on passports for each guest. Folding wheelchairs are welcome, though some sites may not be fully accessible. Please let us know in advance so we can plan accordingly. The Vatican enforces a dress code: no bare shoulders, no shorts, no dresses above the knee, and no bare feet or exposed midriffs.