Rome: Vatican Museum

Getting There: To get to the entrance, you must enter on the north side (Ottaviano/San Pietro - Musei Vaticani metro stop on Line A). If you start in St. Peters Square, exit to the north (to the right if you're facing the bascilica) and follow the old city walls to the entrance (about 10 minutes walk from the square).

Reservations: After seeing the weather forecast for the days that we were going to be in Rome, we decided on the best day to spend inside at the Vatican Museum and purchased tickets online (4 euro extra for each ticket to make the reservation). This was a great decision because we were able to go in a separate line that had no wait, while the general admission line looked to be an hour wait. Even though we had to make a reservation for a certain time, it didn't seem to matter. Our reservations were for 8:30am and we arrived at 8:40am and had no issues getting in. The family in front of us had reservations for 9:00am and walked in right ahead of us. For general admission, the museum doesn't open until 9:00am.

Photos: This was one of the museums where you could take as many photos as you wanted, which was great. The only room that no photos are allowed is the Sistine Chapel. There are security guards doing their best to keep everyone quiet and make sure that no photos are taken. However, with enough people shoved into that tiny room it is difficult for them to keep everyone from taking photos. There was someone that had their camera taken away and at least had the photos deleted.

One thing we had to remind ourselves to do while in the museum is to always remember to look up and behind you. All the ceilings are decorated with artwork even more lavish than what is on the walls in some cases.

Time Required: There seemed to be a lot of tour groups that were available in the morning, once you got inside. Plan to spend about 2.5 hours at the museum, and the Sistine Chapel is at the end of the winding maze of a museum.