9 reviews of Viator Exclusive: Private Viewing of Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums

This tour was worth every penny. The guide was great and the lack of any crowd at all was worth the money.

Excellent tour, only six people in all, including the guide. Very informative and worth the money. It was a completely new experience to be in the Vatican Museums without the other thousands of people, it made us feel very important and privileged. If you can afford it and you're passionate about the Vatican Museums, definitely treat yourself!

As the big bronze doors of the Vatican slammed behind our shoulders, our small group fell silent. We were in the Vatican lobby, having passed through security, and sped towards our destination. I had chosen for us in the next two hours the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. I thought that 45 minutes in the presence of Raphael, his Church Fathers, philosophers and Poets, Popes and Saints and the splendid 16-century Vatican inhabitants would hardly be enough; while for the Cappella Magna, the real name for the Sistine, 'a life is not enough'.

And our journey started, through the lonely round staircase, up the windows on the Cortile del Belvedere, along the corridors of the maps and the candelabra, through the sarcophagi of Helena and Costanza, mother and daughter of Emperor Costantine, buried in those red porhyri beds, smooth, vast, imperial. It started feeling very strange to move on, so few, through those famous museum rooms, so crowded by day, so silent in the middle of the evening: with respect we all started whispering!

And suddenly there we were through the Papal apartments, with frescoes all over the walls of fierce battles outside Rome, by sea and land when Popes and Gauls met and stood their ground.

The guards started leading us again through the dark corridors and having descended some steps and passed under a small side door, we suddenly were through the Cappella Magna, or la Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel) -- the Pope's private chapel. I was ready to start describing the magnificent 15th-century frescoes around the walls by the Umbrian and Florentine School, by Perugino and Botticelli and Ghirlandaio, and then all of our group looked up, one could not help it. And we almost froze.

There Michelangelo's forms were unfolding on that magical suspended ceiling, with an energy and vitality almost unsurpassed by anything we had seen. I have been in the Sistine many times, but never without people all around and this time, with so few people, I finally understood. The Sistine was painted by Michelangelo for a small crowd of particularly fortunate people, by those people that deserving or undeserving are meant to have a special communication with God. A small and unique crowd, the Cappella Pontificia, and in that silence I felt that our whispers were brought by Michelangelo straight to God, as he hovered above us, moving from one act of creation to the next. I explained what I could for what seemed a long time, perhaps half an hour but Michelangelo was doing my job, he was announcing loud and clear the most beautiful story of creation ever told.

We looked at the stories around the walls by the earlier painters and the elegance of their proportions and united voice in recounting the life of Moses and Jesus were not missed. We looked at the Universal Judgment and again with Michelangelo we tried to find a little place, by God, not too far in the right corner, perhaps by Michelangelo where his image stays suspended and then we could not say anymore. We all set on the benches and looked up for the remaining time in silence, suspended.

The nighttime tour of the Vatican was an outstanding experience, worth every penny we paid. The tour director was so knowledgeable and interested in her subject. She truly loved art history and made the viewing of the Sistine Chapel very special. All the arrangements went smoothly and we enjoyed it very much. I can't think of anything that could make the visit better except more time to see the Vatican treasures in the other rooms!

I took my mother as a birthday treat on this tour. I paid the extra to avoid the crowds. It was well worth the money just to be able to move. Our guide told us that in one day in May 25,000 people passed through the Vatican museums! The guide was very knowledgeable and was willing to answer questions from our group of around 15 people. We were totally alone in the museum apart from the security guards and the cleaners! Fantastic.
A tip for anyone thinking of going in summer, this place is NOT air conditioned as we had expected, to say it was stifling inside is an understatement. We went on a day that reached 39 degrees and it was so uncomfortable. Everyone was suffering. It's not that easily accessible with all the stairs to climb. My mother is 80 and she found it difficult to keep going in the heat. There are lots of steps. It's a superb trip to do but I would personally have liked to spend more time in the museum looking at the artifacts etc. Our guide concentrated mostly on the paintings and described what they depicted. It's an incredible experience but we wished we had gone in a cooler season and been able to spend longer looking in the glass cases in the museum. We left the building through that area and the security men kept asking us to keep moving if we stopped to look at something. The Sistine Chapel is much smaller than we expected but amazing. Well worth a look.