Fast Access Vatican Raphael Rooms Sistine Chapel & St Peter Basilica guided Tour

Your tour starts at the entrance to the Vatican Museums where you meet your guide and with skip-the-line entry bypass the waiting crowds, leave your belongings in the Vatican cloakrooms, make use of the free and very clean toilet facilities and follow your guide on a journey of discovery! The first ports of call on the tour are the rooms where you can see Ancient Greek and Roman art. When the Popes ruled Central Italy these artworks were collected from various excavation sites in the city of Rome and brought to the Vatican. Your guide will point out the most notable of these masterpieces including the Belvedere Apollo, the Torso, busts of Claudius and Hadrian and the sarcophagi of Helen and Constance, the mother and daughter of the Emperor Constantine. The tour continues with visits to the Room of Animals and the Gallery of Candelabra. Here you see some marvelous mosaics and more superb statues; Diana of Ephesus; the Muses and a number of famous Greek philosophers. A short walk takes you to the Gallery of Tapestries, the Sobieski Rooms and the Rooms of Raphael. The latter were painted for Pope Julius II by Raphael and his disciples. The magnificent colors and symbolism of the Parnassus and the School of Athens will astound you! We then reach the famous Sistine Chapel, the most visited site in the whole of Italy and known throughout the world as the place where new Popes are elected. Talking is prohibited in the Chapel so your guide will explain about the wonders you will see once inside and also tell you some interesting facts and anecdotes about this magical place. See Michelangelo’s frescoed ceiling depicting the Last Judgment, the Creation of Adam and the Genesis and the Stories of Moses and Jesus painted on the Chapel walls by Botticelli, Perugino and other famous Renaissance artists.
Then it is into Saint Peter’s Basilica, the most important Roman Catholic Church in the world. Here you will see another of Michelangelo’s masterpieces, the Pieta. You will go to the crypt and see the tombs of past Popes, including those of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.
You will also learn something of the architecture of this magnificent edifice and the symbols and rituals that make this church so special. Your guide will bid you a farewell in Saint Peter’s Square but not before telling you some of the secrets and curious facts about Bernini’s famous square. You will also see the balcony where the crowds await the white smoke signifying the election of a new Pope. What a marvelous end to this wonderful Vatican tour!