Vatican Museums
Rome · IT
Vatican Museums with the Sistine Chapel (closed Sundays).
On the map
Viale Vaticano, 100, 00192 Roma RM, Italy
The world's largest art collection by one owner
The Musei Vaticani hold roughly 70,000 works — more than the Louvre — spanning Egyptian sarcophagi to Picasso. Pope Julius II opened the first gallery in 1506 with a single sculpture of Laocoön found that year on the Esquiline Hill. The 7 km route ends with the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo (ceiling 1508–12, Last Judgement 1535–41) at the request of two different Popes thirty years apart.
How to plan the route
Most visitors follow a one-way path that takes 3.5 hours minimum: Pinacoteca → Egyptian → Pio-Clementino (Laocoön, Apollo Belvedere) → Map Gallery → Raphael Rooms → Sistine Chapel. Skip-the-line tickets are mandatory — same-day entry in summer is impossible. Book the 08:00 Vatican opening slot (€27 + €5 booking) to see the Sistine Chapel before the bottleneck.
Practical tips
Closed on Sundays except the last Sunday of the month (free, but six-hour queues). Dress code: covered shoulders and knees, no hats indoors — the Sistine Chapel is a consecrated chapel. Photography allowed everywhere except inside the chapel itself. After the Vatican Museums you can usually exit through a "secret" door directly into St Peter's Basilica at the end of guided tours, skipping the second queue.
