Vatican half day tour

Half day tour of the Vatican

Short description of the itinerary:

You'll be met at your hotel and driven to the Vatican. The tour will start from the Vatican Museums. It would be preferable to do this tour in the afternoon, which is when the place is less crowded. The Vatican Museums generally open at 8:30 am and allow people in until 4:00 pm, to close for the day at 6:00 pm. This means that even if you enter at 4:00 pm you still have 2 hours to visit the place. Normally we visit the Cortile della Pigna, Belvedere, Pio Clementino Museum, the Gallery of Candelabra, the Gallery of Tapestries, the Gallery of Maps, Raphael's Rooms and finally the Sistine Chapel. From the Sistine we'll go directly to St. Peter's Basilica, saving the time that would be necessary to walk back to the car through other museums, driving around the outside of the Vatican City walls, find a parking place again and line up again to walk through the metal detectors in St. Peter's Square. We will arrive at St. Peter's after spending about two hours between the Museums and Sistine Chapel and we'll go about another hour touring the Basilica. Here we'll see the famous Pietà by Michelangelo and many other fantastic masterpieces made by artists like Bernini and Canova. The whole tour is four hours, but you'll be spending about three in the Vatican. The rest of the time is what it takes to get to the Vatican from your hotel, walking back to the car from St. Peter's Basilica and driving back to the your hotel. This tour requires a lot of walking, you'll be standing or walking slowly most of the time that you'll spend at the Vatican, plus you'll ha to walk back from St. Peter's to the entrance to the Vatican Museum where the car will be parked. Those who have problems standing or walking for a long time, can use a wheel chair, available free of any charge at the Vatican Museums and take a taxi back to where we park the car. That taxi ride is not expensive, about 8 Euros, and also adds a little more to the tour because you can drive around the outside of the Vatican and see the walls that separate it form the city of Rome

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.

This is how it works with the Vatican reservations:

To skip the line at the Vatican, make your own reservation with the Vatican directly!

Your guide can't make you skip the line, you can do it for yourself, just go on line and paste this into your browser: http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/index.html

Those guides and travel agents who say that if you book with them you'll skip the line will do it the same thing who can do by yourself in 2 minutes without being charged extra money!

Make your reservation and then pick your guide!

This and all the other tours I'm listing in this website can be done in many ways: if you know where to go and you want to save some money, you can hire a car with chauffeur; if you want some narration, but not a whole lot, you can hire an English speaking driver, if you want more details and better English spoken, you hire a driving guide; if you want to really visit a place thoroughly, or if you are with a large group, you may want to hire an official guide. The best solutions will be suggested for each tour.

Generally we go through the Cortile della Pigna, Pius-Clementine museum, Barberini gallery, Gallery of Geographic maps, Raphael's rooms, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's church.

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

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We meet at the entrance of the museums, or rather at the coffee shop right across the street in front of it, I'll be standing there posting your name unless, you should have a cell phone which would simplify things. It would be preferable to do this tour in the afternoon, which is when the place is less crowded. The Vatican Museums generally open at 8:30 am and allow people in until 4:00 pm, to close for the day at 6:00 pm. This means that even if you enter at 4:00 pm, you still have 2 hours to visit the place. Normally we visit the Cortile della Pigna, Belvedere, Pio Clementino Museum, the Gallery of Candelabra, the Gallery of Tapestries, the Gallery of Maps, Raphael's Rooms and finally the Sistine Chapel. From the Sistine we'll go directly to St. Peter's Basilica, saving the time that would be necessary to walk back to the car through other museums, driving around the outside of the Vatican City walls, find a parking place again and line up again to walk through the metal detectors in St. Peter's Square. We will arrive at St. Peter's after spending about two hours between the Museums and Sistine Chapel and we'll go about another hour touring the Basilica. Here we'll see the famous Pietà by Michelangelo and many other fantastic masterpieces made by artists like Bernini and Canova. The whole tour is three hours. Those who have problems standing or walking for a long time, can use a wheel chair, available free of any charge at the Vatican Museums.

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.

Via Veneto and Piazza Barberini (drive),  Via del Corso (drive), Trevi Fountain (stop), Four fountains crossing (drive), Quirinale Palace (drive), Piazza Venezia (stop), Colosseum (visit), Key Hole (curiosity), Aventine Hill and Circus Maximus (stop), Vatican (visit).

Possible inclusions: Spanish Steps (stop),  Piazza Navona (stop), Pantheon and St. Mary' above Minerva (visit),

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

This tour is obviously centered on the Vatican and, be prepared, it's a tough one. The tour of the Vatican, which includes obviously St. Peter's Basilica, takes about three hours. During this time you'll not have the chance to take a brake and sit down. There's no air-conditioning, except when you're in the Sistine and in the Gallery of Tapestries, and so it's hot. And it's crowded, which makes it even more hot. Do I sound like I don't want to take you there? Wrong! I do, but I would love you not to go it within a tour of Rome. I'm used to all this, but I know you'll be exhausted. Anyway, if you decide to pay the 30 Euros to book your entrance, we can go first thing in the morning and that's a little better. It's better because it's cooler, but also because at the end we can go and sit down and have some lunch, so you rest before you start touring again. I said the tour of the Vatican takes about three hours, but between getting there, getting in and getting out, almost four hours easily pass. Then you go for lunch which takes at least another hour. At this point there will not be much time left to see other sites. I said from the beginning that including the Vatican in a full day tour of Rome forces you to leave out of the tour other sites, but I can guarantee we can include at least the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain. For the rest, it depends mostly on how you move around and how traffic moves around the day we'll do this tour.

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.

This is how it works with the Vatican reservations:

To skip the line at the Vatican, make your own reservation with the Vatican directly!

Your guide can't make you skip the line, you can do it for yourself, just go on line and paste this into your browser: http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/index.html

Those guides and travel agents who say that if you book with them you'll skip the line will do it the same thing who can do by yourself in 2 minutes without being charged extra money!

Make your reservation and then pick your guide!

This and all the other tours I'm listing in this website can be done in many ways: if you know where to go and you want to save some money, you can hire a car with chauffeur; if you want some narration, but not a whole lot, you can hire an English speaking driver, if you want more details and better English spoken, you hire a driving guide; if you want to really visit a place thoroughly, or if you are with a large group, you may want to hire an official guide. The best solutions will be suggested for each tour.

Tour of Rome and the Vatican (Sistine Chapel) from Civitavecchia

Shore excursion: Rome and Vatican including the Sistine Chapel. 9hours/200km.

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to Rome. We should be arriving in there around 9/9.30 am and, if you want me to make a Vatican entry reservation, the Vatican will be our first stop, otherwise we'll reverse the itinerary and go there in the afternoon. Being the tour centered on the Vatican and since you'll end up using most of your limited time ashore to visit just this one place, realistically, I can only guarantee that we'll the following: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's (3 hours or more), Colosseum (about 1 hour). Trevi Fountain (20'), Piazza Venezia (drive).

It will depend on other factors, traffic and you personal interest mainly, if we'll be able to include in the tour these other sites: Capitol Hill (Roman Forum view) (30'),  Piazza Navona (20'), Pantheon St. Mary above Minerva (20/30'),

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

We start from Civitavecchia at  8:00 am. I'll be waiting right on the pier where the ship docks. I park the car as close as possible to the footbridge and you identify me easily because I post your name on the car's windshield.

Here below you can read how the day evolves if we don't make a Vatican entry reservation, but in case we do make a reservation, the itinerary will be reversed and we'll tour the Vatican first thing in the morning.

We should be arriving in Rome around 9/9.30 am and, if you want me to make a reservation, the Vatican will be our first stop, otherwise we'll reverse the itinerary and go there in the afternoon. This tour is obviously centered on the Vatican and, be prepared, that's a tough one. The tour, which includes obviously St. Peter's Basilica, takes about three hours. During this time you'll not have the chance to take a brake and sit down. There's no air-conditioning, except when you're in the Sistine and in the Gallery of Tapestries and so it's hot. And it's crowded, which makes it even more hot. Do I sound like I don't want to take you there? Wrong! I do, but I would love you not to go it within a tour of Rome if this is your first time here. I'm used to all this, but I know you'll be exhausted. Anyway, if you decide to pay the 30 Euros to book your entrance, we can go first thing in the morning and that's a little better. It's better because it's cooler, but also because at the end we can go and sit down and have some lunch, so you rest before you start touring again. I said the tour of the Vatican takes about three hours, but between getting there, getting in and getting out, almost four hours easily pass. Then you go for lunch which takes at least another hour. At this point there will not be much time left to see other sites. I said from the beginning that including the Vatican in a shore tour of Rome forces you to leave out of the tour other sites, but I can guarantee we can include at least the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain. For the rest, it depends mostly on how you move around and how traffic moves around the day we'll do this tour.

These places are: Palazzaccio (Old Court House), St. Andrew's, St. Mary's Above Minerva, Piazza Venezia (Monument to Victor Emmanuel II), Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), Theatre of Marcellus, Synagogue, Mouth of Truth and Keyhole (Roman Curiosity), Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill.

Several other attractions will be pointed out just while you'll be driving by them, such as: Castle St. Angelo and its bridge, Italian Senate, The Marble Foot and Cat Street (Roman Curiosity), Trajan's Column, Imperial Fora, Trajan's Market, The Maps of the Empire, Arch of Constantine, Marcus Aurelius's Column, Parliament and Council of Ministers, St. Nicholas in Chains, temples of Apollo, Vesta and Janus, Quirinal Palace.

This is the usual itinerary, it takes you to the major highlights of the city of Rome and at the end of the day you can sure say you've seen Rome!

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.

This and all the other tours I'm listing in this website can be done in many ways: if you know where to go and you want to save some money, you can hire a car with chauffeur; if you want some narration, but not a whole lot, you can hire an English speaking driver, if you want more details and better English spoken, you hire a driving guide; if you want to really visit a place thoroughly, or if you are with a large group, you may want to hire an official guide. The best solutions will be suggested for each tour.

Vatican and Tivoli full-day tour

If you have dedicated one full day to visit Rome, you want to spend a half visiting but you wonder what you can do the rest of the day, here's what you can do, let me take you to Tivoli!

The Villa D'Este in Tivoli is the most attractive of the sites just outside of the city of Rome, you reach the place by car in a little more than half an hour and the splendor of the Italian Renaissance will be all around you.

Going on this tour, it would be better to go visit the Vatican before Tivoli, but in the morning the place is normally very busy and in this case it would be better to make a reservation. Once at the Vatican, we normally go through the Cortile della Pigna, Pius-Clementine museum, Barberini gallery, Gallery of Geographic maps, Raphael's rooms, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's church. Then we get back to the car and drive to Tivoli and, after visiting the Villa D'Este, we return to your hotel.

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.

This and all the other tours I'm listing in this website can be done in many ways: if you know where to go and you want to save some money, you can hire a car with chauffeur; if you want some narration, but not a whole lot, you can hire an English speaking driver, if you want more details and better English spoken, you hire a driving guide; if you want to really visit a place thoroughly, or if you are with a large group, you may want to hire an official guide. The best solutions will be suggested for each tour.

Vatican and the Roman Castles

Full-day tour to the Vatican and the Roman Castles

In case you've already visited Rome and Tivoli, or if the only day that is available for you is a Monday, when Villa D'Este is closed, the alternative is to visit the Roman Castles.

Instead of Tivoli, I'll take you to the charming, little and medieval hill-top towns of Castelgandolfo and Nemi.

Each one of these two town overlooks a natural volcanic lake and they are both located in the area that produces the white wine we drink in Rome.

This tour takes to one of the most visited places in Rome, the Sistine Chapel, with an excursion to another very famous place: the Roman Castles. This is what we call the hilly area south-east of Rome where the wine that is consumed in Rome comes from, since the days of the Ancient Romans. I prefer visiting the Vatican in the morning and the Castles in the afternoon. But that's not always possible because of the lines to enter the Vatican Museums. For sure making a reservation would help, by I also rely on my acquaintances at the Vatican who make mw skip the line for a tip. When their on duty. Anyway, after visiting the Vatican we stop a restaurant on the way for lunch. If we leave the Vatican early enough to get to the Roman Castles at a decent time we can dine at one of the restaurants there overlooking the lakes, otherwise we'll stop at some other nice place on the way, which could be "Sora Rosa" on the old Appian Way. After visiting the quaint towns of Castel Gandolfo and Nemi, we return to your hotel.

 More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

You are always free to modify the itinerary as you please.