
This private tour of the Vatican is wheelchair accessible and lasts for 3 to 5 hours, tailored to different interests. Participants will visit the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica, accompanied by a knowledgeable guide. The 4-hour option covers all three sites, while the 5-hour option allows for more in-depth exploration of the Museums. A 3-hour tour can focus on just the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica or on the Museums and Sistine Chapel. The tour includes audio headsets for groups of six or more and is suitable for those with disabilities.
Start your tour at the renowned Vatican Museums. Aside from being the home of the Pope, Vatican City is also home to the Vatican Museums, the world's largest collection of art with 9 miles of artworks that wrap around the Vatican walls 4½ times. It contains 54 museums, 1,400 rooms, chapels, and galleries. Aside from the renowned Sistine Chapel, the museums also display the only work of Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, along with masterpieces by St. Jerome, the Raphael Rooms, and the Pinacoteca, which houses collections of the Popes dating back to the Middle Ages and arranged in chronological order.
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is possibly the most well-known masterpiece in modern day, with over 5 million visitors per year. It was a project the artist took on reluctantly because his focus was sculpture, and he would often complain about the physical toll it took on his body. It is said that the design of the chapel from Pope Sixtus IV is modeled after Solomon's Temple from the Old Testament, measuring just larger than a professional basketball court! There are many more frescoes to admire here from other artists, including Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, Cosimo Roselli, and Sandro Botticelli.
You will head through a secret entry into our last stop on the tour, St. Peter's Basilica, the largest basilica in the world, with markings inside the church showing that every other basilica could fit within it. Visitors are welcomed by Michelangelo's Pietà at the entrance, followed by magnificent mosaics and Bernini's Baldacchino, which stands 96 feet tall and weighs 100,000 pounds of bronze. Surprisingly, there is only one actual painting inside the Basilica, which can be spotted hanging above the Pietà. Many Popes are buried within the church or are on display, while most are buried beneath the Basilica, including St. Peter, the first Pope.
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