Vatican Museums: My Favorites
Meeting Point of Around Rome Tours for Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
Our tour to the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel started with a bad mood. I booked and paid the tour in advance through the ‘Around Rome Tours’ website. However, on the designated place and time to meet, no one from the Around Rome Tours showed up. It was only my mother and me who were waiting (we arrived 30 minutes before the scheduled meeting time). I called their office but no one was answering the phone so we decided to visit their office in Rome. As we arrived, the management apologized and told us their guide was sick. We accepted their offer to join a similar tour from another travel agent.
We spent half a day arranging something that should not have happened at the first place. I had the feeling that we were the only customers on that morning’s tour so we were being “ignored”. I did not plan to write a negative review about ‘Around Rome Tours’ on my blog but my one star review did not show up in their website (based on my latest check 15 May 2015). I guess negative reviews will never appear on their website, but of course I can tell the world about this experience instead. Just be aware when booking their tour online.
Anyway, we lost half a day but we had a good tour in the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel from the other travel agent. The Vatican Museums are huge; it contains 54 art galleries. We did not visit all the galleries and I don’t think we could, even if we spent a whole day inside the museum. From the visit, I concluded three areas in the Vatican Museums are my favorites:
It is a large hall in Pius Clementine Museum. The Round Room was built in 18th century. Michelangelo Simonetti designed the dome of the room inspired from the Pantheon’s dome.
I found the dome to be impressive and perfectly paired to the red colored circle room with colossal statues. A large monolithic porphyry basin was located in the center of the room. It was believed it was used by the ancient Roman’s Emperor Nero.
The room of the Segnatura was one of the Raphael Rooms. Raphael’s painting “The School of Athens” is displayed in the room and is impressive. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 during the Renaissance era. I just thought the whole concept of the painting was intriguing. I will return later on and share on Raphael Rooms in future post.
One of the reasons to visit the Vatican Museums was to see this impressive staircase myself. This staircase was in my bucket list of photography subjects to capture. The staircase was designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932. This iconic staircase, as mentioned by numerous articles, has two separate helix, one leading up and the other leading down. They twist together in a double helix formation. The helix formation actually represents life, after the discovery of the double helix DNA in 1950-ish. Coincidence?
Have you been to Vatican Museums? Which areas do you like best?
Fisheye Lens 8 mm ƒ/3.5 more on my photography gear, please visit: indahs photography gear
indahs: dive, travel & photography 
So sorry to hear about the problems with the tour. That is so very disappointing. Your photos are stunning as always Indah!
Thank you Sue! We were unlucky with the tour that we booked, lesson learned though and I should check third party website for the tour review beforehand!
centuries of artifacts in those museums-I think you could be there every day for a long time and not know it all. I love the staircase photos!
Thank you so much! The staircase is certainly very special 😊
Not been there yet. Sorry for your bad start Mbak Indah.. It seems the company just sow people the good reviews only. Maybe you can write at tripadvisor, so other customers can learn from your experience..
That’s good idea! Thanks so much mbak Nurul, I will write about it in tripadvisor too 🙂
Stunning views! Should get to the Vatican and Rome like yesterday!
Thank you so much! It is less than 3hours flight from the Netherlands 😉
I have been to the Vatican museum once and to the Sistine Chapel. Only once, and I don’t know if I will have the opportunity again. It was a very special trip and especially memorable. I had never imagined I would get to see such a historic city and such jaw dropping beauty as the sistine chapel. I like your pictures, very clear and excellent quality. Always include the personal anecdotes including anything nonsensical, or whimsical – just to be you. For example food or fashion are always interesting to share.
Thank you so much! You are so kind! Rome is truly special with history and impressive art design. It was unbelieveable how much they had achieved long before the modern technology.
I would LOVE to see the Momo Staircase, this is just amazing. I love this architecture.
The Momo Staircase was truly impressive! I was shocked to see how big it was 😊😊
Wow! These pictures with your descriptions are priceless. I absolutely love them all! I did not know the staircase even existed! Thank you so very much for sharing these stunning images and your narrative. I am sorry you and your mom had such a rough start to the tour. Online bookings can be great but there is always that one slip up that can cause things to go wrong. I am so happy you were able to overcome this obstacle and see these man made wonders! I just cannot believe ‘The school of Athens’ is still so vibrant and stunning. Do you know if it has been restored since the original painted it?
Thank you so much for beautiful and kind comment, Tina! Truly appreciate this. It was bit rough start but thankfully the ending went well 🙂 The School of Athens was still in good shape when I saw it. I think it has been restored many times before. Some parts of Raphael Rooms were under restoration as well during our visit. I guess they keep doing it regularly to ensure the painting in good shape.
Sometimes I will read reviews, but sometimes wonder if they are completely accurate. So interesting that your review never did find it’s way to the company website. Thank you for sharing your feelings.
Your tour on this blog post is absolutely amazing Indah. I am so enthralled by the architecture here. Am so much in awe. WOW!
Hope your mom was able to manage the stairs, and the 2 of you had a memorable time together.
Thank you for sharing! 🙂
~Carl~
Thank you so much Carl! My mother did not realize how amazing the Museums was until she saw it herself. Thankfully she was still okay with the stairs – considering it was a huge one! I agree with you about website reviews, sometimes we need to check to multiple website before drawing into conclusion..lesson learned here, and hopefully this post will help other who is about to book the tour from this travel agent 🙂