The Vatican

Vatican City

Vatican City is the smallest country in the world.  Nestled inside the city of Rome, this country is .17 square miles but has its own police force and government.  It is the spiritual headquarters of the Catholic Church.  Inside Vatican City you can visit the Vatican Museums, including seeing the famous Sistine Chapel, and you can visit St. Peter's Basilica.  I very highly recommend doing a tour of the Necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica.  This tour takes you under St. Peter's Basilica and includes seeing what is believed to be a box containing St. Peter's bones.  The tour ends up in St. Peter's Basilica, so it means skipping the very long line to get inside the Basilica.  You can buy tickets for the Necropolis tour here:

Scavi Tour Tickets - Official Site

The tickets for this tour are only 13 euro from this site.  Do not buy tickets from a tour company such as Viator -- we've done that before, it is NOT worth the money, and you end up paying a lot more money to take the tour with the official Scavi tour guides that you would have had when buying from the official site.  You have to buy the official Scavi tour tickets in advance because only 250 visitors are allowed per day and each group only contains about 12 people.  This is worth planning ahead!  It is my favorite experience when visiting the Vatican!

The Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel are also very worth seeing.  You cannot take photos or video inside the Sistine Chapel.  The museums take quite a long time to tour and you probably won't be able to see everything.  It is just too big!  Admission tickets cost 20 euros for the museums and collections.  The official site to purchase tickets is here:

Vatican Museum Tickets

It is not as easy to get to the Vatican as it is to reach many other destinations in Rome.  There is not a metro stop right next to Vatican City.  The Ottaviano-S metro stop is about a five minute walk from the Vatican.  It was under construction the last time we visited the Vatican, in 2024, so we had a much longer walk.  You can study the Rome metro maps here to determine the closest open metro stop when visiting the Vatican:

Rome Metro Maps

Photos are not allowed on the Necropolis tour, so I am not able to share any photos of the Necropolis, or of the Sistine Chapel.  But here are many more photos of St. Peter's Square and the Vatican museums from my trips to Rome & Vatican City:

Vatican Museums

The hallways of the Vatican museum are decorated in every possible place, including the ceilings

There is an unbelievable amount of detail

As you can see, it was also wall-to-wall people inside the museums

Mary and Child Jesus stained glass inside the Vatican museums

Lions of Nectanebo

The Bramante staircase is visible on the left in this photo - use this large winding staircase as you enter or exit the Vatican museums.

Bramante Staircase

Apollo Belvedere

Statue of Hercules in Bronze

The Vatican Museum Mummy (there are actually 9 mummies in the Vatican museums)

The Jennings Dog Sculpture

St. Peter's Basilica

Inside St Peter's Basilica, the beautiful sculpture by Michelangelo, the Pieta, which is probably his most famous sculpture of a religious subject.  He carved it when he was 24 years old and it is the only sculpture that he ever signed.  The Virgin Mary looks down sweetly at the lifeless body of her son Jesus Christ.  

Altar of St. Sebastian, tomb of St. Paul II

This painting, by Domenichino, represents St. Sebastian's martyrdom

The Vestibule Dome of the Baptism Chapel in St Peter's Basilica 

Bernini's bronze Baldachinno located in front of the Papal altar

Underneath Bernini's Baldachinno - the dove, representing the Holy Ghost

Monument to Pope Alexander XII by Bernini

St Peter's Chair, or St Peter's Throne dates back to the 1st century and is believed to have actually been used by the apostle Peter.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

List of Popes Interred at the Basilica

outside of St Peter's Basilica, on St Peter's Square

My husband and I at St Peter's Square in 2020

Tunnel on the side of the Basilica 

Looking up at the Basilica

St. Peter's Square

view of St Peter's Square from the Basilica

2024

2018

On St Peter's Square

Fountain of St Peter's Square by Maderno

Obelisk on St Peter's Square

The "Angels Unaware" Sculpture unveiled in 2019 by Pope Francis, was sculpted by Timothy P. Schmalz.  140 figures in the sculpture represent migrants and refugees.

Plaque on St Peter's Square, famously represented as one of the plaques in the movie "Angels and Demons" - an angel representing air.

The movie clip can be viewed here:  Angels & Demons

statue of St. Peter on St Peter's Square

Outside the Vatican Museums

The Fontana della Pigna (pinecone fountain) is an ancient Roman fountain

Wall Fountain in Pigna courtyard

Building dedicated to Leonardo Davinci at the Vatican

Sfera con Sfera, or Sphere within a Sphere, created by Arnaldo Pomodoro

The Sphere in 2024

The Carriage Pavilion

The Carriage Pavilion is located in the basement of the Vatican Museums and features transportation used by former popes.

The Vatican City Walls

The streets stretch all around the tall Vatican City walls.  Vatican Museums and St Peter's Square have two separate entrances.  It takes about 15 minutes to walk between the two entrances, so know which one you are heading to before you start walking!  Viale Vaticano is the entrance to the museums, and Via Della Conciliazione is the entrance for St. Peter's Square.  

Lines for the museums are very long, so be sure to purchase your skip-the-line tickets at the official Vatican Museum website listed above.

This is where people line up to enter the Vatican museums.  Purchase skip-the-line tickets at the official Vatican site and usually you will walk right through the line in a matter of minutes.

Necropolis Scavi Tour

This is the entrance where we met our tour guide for the Scavi tour of the Necropolis

You see a completely different view of Vatican City by doing the Necropolis tour, because even walking to where you meet your Scavi tour guide provides different views than you would see while just walking around St Peter's Square.

This is where we met the tour guide from Viator before she took us to the official Necropolis tour guide

As far as I know, this location has nothing to do with Viator, it was just a meeting place that they figured would be easy to find, because our tour guide came from elsewhere also.  I do not recommend hiring any tour guide to take you on the Necropolis tour.  All they do is tell you information about the Vatican before dropping you off to the official Necropolis tour guide.  Just pay for a tour directly from the source - it's a lot cheaper and more convenient!