bvanderhaar

I've read through this thread about the recommended Vatican tours, primary recommended Context.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/italy...s-vatican.html

We are using Context for the Roma Artica tour.

Unfortunately context tours times for the Vatican don't work for our itinerary. So I'm close to booking the official tour from the Vatican with a guide "Guided Tours with exclusive guide - Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel"

There are so many options on the site, but this looked like the most common; but I'm open to suggestions (we've never been to Rome).

I've heard lines can be long, but does this tour help us "skip the line" if we book this tour? The times they offer work out great for our schedule.

mromalley

I've had very good experiences with the Roman Guy. I've taken it myself and booked family and friends on it. It gets you into the Vatican an hour early. My trip last year, we were in the Sistine Chapel with about 25 other people.

https://theromanguy.com/tours/Vatican

I've also used Walks of Italy but I was less impressed with them.

Perche

There's a difference between "skip the line," and what mromalley wrote. There is a separate line for licensed travel guides. If you have a travel guide you go to that line and just skip the regular line. What Mromalley wrote about is getting into the Vatican early, and that is different. You can "skip the line" with any travel agent at one in the afternoon, and stand in line packed in with everyone else. Skip the line doesn't mean the same as getting in before they open to the public.

A lot has to do with when you are going. I remember having a long layover in Rome and asking the person I was traveling with if she wanted to go into the city and do something. She said that she wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. It was sometime during the winter in the late afternoon. We just walked straight in. There might have only been 4-5 people in there. We just kept taking photos of the ceiling. Every now and then the guard would turn around and say, "no fotos." Then when they turned around and we'd start taking photos for another 5 minutes before they got bored again and would turn around again and say, "no fotos."

There were no lines to skip at that time of year or time of day. You really have to say when you are going.

bvanderhaar

Thanks a ton - we had a heard from a friend who visited that there would be lines. We'd be visiting around 2PM (May 3) right after we arrive (10:30AM). My traveling companion is worried about a guide to understand our way through. Is there enough brochures/maps or should we try to get a guide as well?

Perche

A guide is helpful, just don't choose one that goes with so many clients that they communicate with you by a headphone. The Sistine Chapel doesn't need a guide, but the rest of the Vatican Museum is so large that if you just go in and start wandering around you won't know what you are seeing. Some people go in and never visit the Raphael rooms.

In addition to the companies that let you in before opening, there are companies that get you in after they close. Neither service comes cheap, but if the Vatican Museums are on the bucket list, then it is worth it. There is no skip the line once you get into the Vatican Museum. Skip the line just means that you already have a ticket to get in, and it would be really dumb not to, and just show up and stand on line for two hours to buy a ticket. You don't need a tour guide to buy a ticket in advance.

Once inside the Vatican Museums there is no line skipping. To get into the Sistine Chapel you stand in another long line. Every 10 minutes or so the guards push everyone out and usher in another large group of people, and pack you in as if you are on a train during rush hour. After a certain number of minutes they push everyone out and pack in the next group. It's about as spiritual as standing in a sweaty train during rush hour. If you get there when it's quiet, meaning either off-season or before or after it opens, then it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

You can wander around the Vatican Museum until you get to the Sistine Chapel and save it for last because the Sistine Chapel is furthest away from the main entrance. But if you happen to get into the Museum early, just skip all the other rooms and head straight to it because often nobody has made it there yet. They keep stopping to look at things in every room along the way and get to the Sistine Chapel last. Go to the Sistine Chapel first, then backtrack to see the other rooms. However, this strategy only works if your ahead of most of the line when they open.

Also, on a typical day no one is allowed in after 4PM, but they don't close until around 6PM, so after 4PM things start to empty because people are leaving, but nobody is coming in to replace them. You can sometimes find a surprisingly empty Sistine Chapel later in the day. Otherwise, to avoid the crowds means a pre-opening or after-closure tour, or going during the off season.

bvanderhaar

Perche - you are awesome per usual - this is exactly the advice I'm looking for. I'm going to look into the after close tours, but if those don't work - strategize the walking order as suggested.

amyers

We are using Walks of Italy only because a friend recommended it. It's called the Pristine Sistine. We are taking that on 4/8, a Saturday morning.

Kagehitokiri

anyone worked directly with vatican museum? i wonder re their 'guides' as well as donating money rather than potentially paying a lot to other companies.

Perche

I haven't worked with the Vatican, but their reputation is not the best. This reminds a little bit about London taxi drivers versus Uber. To pass the test to be a taxi driver in London has been called the most difficult test in the world. It takes about three years of study, and tens of thousands of miles walked and driving around. They will be given a question how to get from one place to another, and which is the best bridge to take, based on the hour of the day. It really takes years of study.

One time I couldn't get a taxi, and I called Uber. The driver called me and asked, "where are you been?" I responded, do you mean where am I now, or where am I going. He said, "No, where are you been?" We couldn't do the ride because we couldn't communicate. This is very different from the experience in a London taxi.

I'm not saying that it is as hard to be a tour guide as it is to be a taxi driver in London, but there are levels, and it is quite difficult to become a tour guide in Italy.

Tour guides are licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and those are two very important things to Italy. In the early 1990's I lived in Seattle, and Rick Steves was just starting out there, and was already becoming well known. Maybe 6-7 years later a friend called and wanted to go to Europe, and asked if I could recommend a travel agent. I told her, why don't you just call Rick Steves?

She went on his 7 countries in 21 days tour, or something like that. The guide was a community college professor from Minnesota who did Rick Steves tours as a summer job. They wound up getting married. That was great, but such a person would never, ever be qualified to work as a tour guide in Italy. Not even close.

There are 3 official levels. First is a Guida Turistica, or licensed tour guide. The second is an Acompagnatore Turistico, or someone who accompanies tourists and provides some basic information as they walk you around. They are usually someone who aspires to be a tourist guide. They are forbidden from certain museums, archeological sites, opera houses, etc. The highest level is to be qualified to run a tour guide agency. At the lowest level are just people who offer to guide you around without any specific certification.

So, it's not like being a London taxi driver, but there is a lot of documentation and certification of expertise and training required at each level, except for the ones who do it unofficially, of course.

Known places like Walking Rome, etc, only employ people who are licensed by the Ministry as tour guides. It is important that you choose someone who is certified to do their job. At a higher level is Context Travel, which has its own internal requirement that someone taking you on an art, history, archeology, etc tour, have a Masters or Phd in the field, so you are going around with a docent.

Most of the people walking around with flags and megaphones, explaining things to a throng of tourists following them around have some type of permit, but they are in no way qualified tour guides who know the city.

So what about the Vatican? I'm not sure, except that they don't have much of a reputation. As one of the two independent countries that exist inside of Italy, they have their own rules, and they are not transparent when it comes to tour guides. I've heard of students getting summer jobs doing it, and things like that. Unless you find someone who actually did it, it's hard to know what the qualifications are. Unlike an official tour guide who studies, gets qualified, licensed, and is knowledgeable about the field, and has to re-license I believe every year, Vatican tour guides are sometimes people just doing it on the side. After all, if they are telling you about the altar in the Basilica and just say some basic things, you're not going to know enough to call them out on it.

Last year, only 53 new people were qualified as tour guides in Italy. Seven as Accompagnatore Turistico, 2 qualified to be a Director, and 44 became qualified as tour guides. Three were from the USA, one Accompagnatore, and 2 guides.

Marambio

I'm currently in Rome and today we did the Vatican Museums guided tour in Spanish. The whole place was packed, but that's probably because many of us went to the museums straight from the general audience with the Pope, which is always on Wednesday mornings.

The guide was an Italian woman on her 50s who spoke fantastic Spanish and took us through most of the museum landmarks in 2 hours. She made some silly mistakes (e.g. when explaining "The School of Athens", she said "Socrates, about whom we know so little because he didn't like writing..." – Madame and I stared at each other for a few seconds and cross-checked whether we had heard the same), but overall I think taking the guide was worth it. Not only did we avoid the queues as we had already booked online, but also the Vatican Museums are huge and quite unfriendly when compared to the Louvre, the Pergamon in Berlin and the British Museum, so it was better to have someone taking us across the place. After the tour we did stay for a few more hours to see all the other parts that interested us but weren't covered by the guide.

Re the Sistine Chapel, I agree with Perche – they tell you it is a place of worship but it has the spiritual contents of a crowded train station.

TravelingNomads

Just to clarify, how long is a typical "wait time" if you have pre-printed tickets, but not a guide? There would be 4 of us traveling at the end of Nov.

KLouis

When I last visited the Musei Vaticani the long lines were to buy tickets, not to enter. Mind you, this was, almost to the day, 20 years ago, so things have most probably changed; or not?

amyers

Just got back from Rome this week.

We used Walks of Italy for our tour at the Vatican and I must say it was FANTASTIC. Our guide explained things to us that we would have never even have known.

We were in the Sistine Chapel with maybe 30 people or so, then got to go back in later when it was crowded. But still, was able to have about 15/20 minutes with it not empty but virtually empty.

The bad part of the tour is that, although we were not exactly rushed, we didn’t have the time to fully absorb all of it. However, I understand because the tour only lasted 3.5 hours and we really need 3.5 weeks.

But, we were able to go back through at our leisure.

I would highly recommend Walks of Italy.