Private Vatican Tour

Officially Licensed Guides

Guided Walking Tour

Flexible Rescheduling

Tour The Vatican With Your Guide

With skip-the-line access and your own private Vatican tour guide to reveal the fascinating historical, religious, and artistic significance of the many wonders on display, this is the ultimate Vatican tour guide experience.

Walk through the Renaissance treasures of the Vatican Museums and stare out across the beauty of the Eternal City from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Explore the Sistine chapel’s most extraordinary artifacts with your private guide as they reveal the hidden messages in Michelangelo’s breathtaking ceiling frescos. All in one incredible tour!

What’s Included in Your Tour of The Vatican?

  • Early morning pre-general public skip the line entrance to the Vatican
  • Direct entrance to St Peter’s *exclusively allowed to us as you will be accompanied by a guide*
  • No wait tickets for the Vatican Museums & the Sistine chapel
  • Accredited English-speaking tour guide

What Will We Visit On Our Private Tour of The Vatican?

  • Vatican Museums including:
    • Octagonal Courtyard
    • Musei Chiaramonti
    • Round Room
    • Gallery of the Maps
    • Gallery of the Candelabra
    • Gallery of the Tapestries

  • St Peter’s Basilica
  • Sistine Chapel
  • The Sistine Chapel ceiling featuring ‘the creation of Adam’ by Michelangelo

Private Vatican Tour Description

Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy

In the morning your guide will meet you outside Caffè Vaticano with all of your skip-the-line tickets ready to enter the Vatican city.

Your expert guide will navigate you through the intriguing history of the Vatican Museums as you explore its vast network of corridors and galleries. From ancient sculptural monuments to Renaissance masterpieces, this feast for the eyes will be served by your guide with a healthy dose of context and humor.

You’ll hear the legendary stories of the scandalous popes and petulant artists behind the most famous masterpieces in the Vatican, as well as see our favorite little-known gems that are often overlooked by most visitors.

Moving on, you will enter into the world-famous Sistine Chapel for a jaw-dropping look at Michelangelo’s celebrated ceiling frescos.

After marveling at Michelangelo’s masterpiece, you will be escorted through a special entrance to St Peter’s Basilica, where you will learn about the fascinating history and personalities behind the construction of one of the most iconic buildings in the world.

This tour doesn’t run on Sundays, 1st May, 29th June, 14th & 15th August, 1st November, 8th December, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day.

The earliest entry is 8:30 am pre-general public entrance, although if you prefer to go later it is not a problem.

Please note that due to COVID restrictions, the Vatican has closed the direct passageway between the Sistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basilica until further notice so we are unable to include St Peter’s Basilica on our standard tour. Instead, we will be replacing this with Raphael’s Rooms where you will see:

  • The Room of Constantine
  • The Room of the Fire in the Borgo
  • The Room of Heliodorus
  • The Room of the Signature including Raphael’s masterpiece, “The School of Athens”

If you would still like to visit St Peter’s Basilica please fill in the contact form and we’ll get back to you with options. 

Additional Vatican Tour Options:

If you would like a longer, more comprehensive tour of the Vatican Museums we can extend your tour to include the following: 

  • The Pinacoteca with works by Raphael, Da Vinci Caravaggio, and more
  • Raphael’s Rooms: including the masterpiece ‘The School of Athens’
  • The Egyptian Museum
  • Climb St Peter’s Dome for a perfect 365-degree view of Rome. You will also view the inner dome and get up close to the magnificent mosaics as you gaze down to on the Pope’s High Altar far below.

For prices and to book one of these additional tour options, please get in touch with our team by filling in this form!

We highly recommend the Tours by Luxe experience! During our week in Rome in July, Amy and her fabulous assistants Irenes P and V put together two wonderful tours for us. Our first was a tour of the Vatican Museum accompanied by our guide Jessica, the second to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Forum with Letizia. Both guides were knowledgeable, entertaining and fun. We all got a lot out of the tours - it’s so much better than wandering around by yourselves. Discovering secret messages in famous art works or having centuries old graffiti pointed out is just thrilling. It’s also fabulous bypassing the queues and having air-conditioned transfers to and from the sites. We highly recommend the Tours by Luxe experience.

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SideBar Tour Request (Italy Day Tour)

Step 1

Fill out the form below with your tour information & details

Step 2

Your personal tour planner will be in touch within 24 hours with your quote

Step 3

Pay securely online & meet your private guide at a pre-arranged meeting point

Request Your Private Vatican Tour Quote Here

Our tours are kept to small private groups to provide the best possible experience for our clients. As such we are able to customize our itineraries to suit your interests, needs and requirements.

To discuss this tour or any changes you would like to make simply complete the form below.

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Email us

Let us know your questions!

Call our team

+1 (424) 766-5955

WhatsApp us

We're here to help!

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