Travel Back in Time at the Musei Vaticani

The Vatican Museum should be at the top of your destinations list when visiting Rome; a must-see for arts and history lovers – very well worth the trip!

Travelling to the Vatican or Rome without visiting Musei Vaticani will be incomplete, and you definitely would not want to miss seeing the works of great artists like Botticelli, Giotto, Raphael and Da Vinci.

The best time to visit is during early summer to avoid the massive crowd visiting the museums. It is also advisable to get your tickets in advance – it will save you a LOT of queuing time, both at the entrance gate and at the ticket counter. We got ours through one of the websites offering the museum tickets for a reasonable price.

Our group of seven family members visited the museums in late August of 2016. The place was indeed crowded, and we were literally moving shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the crowd. If you are a photo hobbyist, or you are planning to take a lot of pictures, I recommend carrying a wide-angle lens and a mid-range telephoto lens with decent speed (wide aperture). Remember – no flash photography allowed!

Before coming to the museums, have a hearty breakfast and bring a good amount of drinking water. It is a good idea to start off at early in the morning. After obtaining your museums guide pamphlet, plan on which individual museums/areas you are going to visit. Again, it will save you a good deal of time. Prioritise the places/artworks you would like to see first, as there is no way you will be able to see/visit the entire place in one day.

DO NOT MISS THE SISTINE CHAPEL, NO MATTER WHAT!

This is where you will see Michelangelo's Creation painting on the ceiling. You will hear security officers in this room yelling "No pictures!", and yes, photography is not allowed here.

For us and for a lot of people, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – it is well worth the time!

Planning on visiting the museums again in the near future.