The Jarvii Believe it or not, I have not been to the Vatican Museums until now. Yes, I used to live in Rome and subsequently visited several times afterwards, but I’ve never been to the Vatican Museums. I even waited in line all night to pay my last respects to Pope John Paul II, but never made it inside to see the Sistine Chapel. There was something about the line and the amount of people at the Vatican Museums that really turned me off, and back then you couldn’t reserve tickets online like you can now. But because my cousin and aunt were also with us, we went and were able to reserve tickets to avoid the lines.
First off, this place is huge! Seriously expect to spend an entire day here. Thankfully there’s also a cafe inside so you can take a break and have a snack (or beer). But if you are like me and the kids, you really don’t want to do anything else afterwards–you are just mentally drained by the art and history that you just need to go back home and rest.
Second, make sure you dress appropriately!!! Everyone needs to cover their shoulders and don’t wear short shorts in the summer, including children! It’s August and hot as Hades in Italy. I wore a sleeveless maxi dress, but when entering the museum I wore a long sleeved, button up chambray shirt over it to cover my shoulders. That way when I left the museum, I could easily stow away my shirt into my backpack.
Third, this place claims to be stroller friendly–there are elevators for a person to take the stroller up the various floors. But the number of visitors and the not so ideal map made it pretty much impossible to meet up with your party. We definitely needed the stroller too. 4 year old S basically slept in the stroller the entire time we were at the museum (which was fine since we didn’t have to pay for her ticket). My husband ended up pushing her around and exploring the museum on his own, while I was with O and the rest of my family.
So this place is huge and overwhelming; have I mentioned that already? I probably wouldn’t recommend coming here with young children, however my 4 year old was still jet lagged and slept the entire time. But we splurged on the audio tour for everyone, including my 6 year old son. The kids audio tour is recommended for kids 6-12, so it was perfect for him. I highly recommend getting the audio tour for both adults and kids. It was much easier to follow along and know what you are looking at.
With regards to the kids version–O gives it two enthusiastic thumbs up. The only limitation to his audio tour is that it doesn’t cover every single object at the museum like the adult’s version. But that’s probably a good thing because it would be overwhelming for a little person. The map isn’t the best because it wasn’t very clear where every object was within the museum. We ended up treating it like a scavenger hunt, which O really enjoyed. He got really excited when he was able to find what he was suppose to find on his map. Another limitation to the kids version is that it only provides of a tour for a quarter of the things in the actual museum. You’ll experience lulls and may have to share your adult version. In terms of ease of use, it was pretty straight forward. I taught him how to listen to what he was looking for, and from there he was able to do it all on his own.
Overall, it was very interesting to be inside–it reminded me of the Louvre in Paris. There’s a lot of amazing things inside, a lot of things you wouldn’t expect. The Sistine Chapel is also pretty amazing, albeit smaller than I expected. You aren’t allowed to take pictures inside of the Sistine Chapel either.
By the time we were done with the Vatican Museums, we walked around the corner to go into St. Peter’s Basilica. There wasn’t a line to go inside anymore since it was later in the day. It’s free to walk around inside and take in the opulence. It’s also one of those things that you don’t have to do after the Vatican Museums cause you may be fatigued. But since we were on a tight crunch schedule, we squeezed it in.
Another successful day in Rome and now we rest before another day in Italy.
