Attractions

Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel

Vatican City

Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel
Photo: Antoine Taveneaux, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the world's greatest art collections, built up by the popes, with classical sculpture, the Raphael Rooms, the Gallery of Maps, and, at the end, the Sistine Chapel, with Michelangelo's ceiling and Last Judgement.


Book timed tickets online to skip a long queue; it's closed on Sundays except the last Sunday of the month (free, very crowded). Photography isn't allowed in the Sistine Chapel. Allow at least three hours.

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Buildings

St Peter's Basilica

The largest church in the world and the centre of the Catholic Church, built over the tomb of St Peter.

Natural features

Vatican Gardens

Formal gardens, woods and fountains covering about half of Vatican City, behind St Peter's, with grottoes, statues and views of the dome.

Historic sites

St Peter's Square

Bernini's vast oval square in front of St Peter's Basilica, embraced by curving colonnades of 284 columns, with an Egyptian obelisk in the centre.