Vatican closes at 3:20 in the Summer?

[kaylin]

Hi,

 

I was on the http://www.romeinlimo.com site and was reading the faq's and it said the Vatican closes at 3:20 in the summer. Is that correct?

 

Also, if I buy tickets from one of the internet sites I thought that Icould bypass the lines. If I read correctly, according to them, you can't.

 

Thanks for any info.

 

Kay

[janfran813]

The tickets are sold to the public until 3:30 in the high season, 12:30 in low season. The museums are actually open 2 1/2-3 hours after this deadline. These are the tickets sold at the ticket booths after waiting in the long lines. We will be in Rome at the end of June and I went to the Vatican Museum website, requested tickets (I was given the choice of the time), and they sent me a confirmation letter. This was all done by e-mail. We'll show up 15 min. before our tour starts, skip the long line, show the printed e-mail, pay for our tickets in another (much shorter) line, and hopefully get right in. If you can pinpoint the time you'll be there, that is your best bet.

As it turns out, our tour is at 12 noon, so I've arranged all other sightseeing around this time.

 

Best of luck!

[Susan-M]

Just to add to the info in the above post, here's a link to Vatican Museum sites with info on when it is open and tour reservations:

 

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-Info/MV_Info_Orario.html

 

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-Info/MV_Info_Servizi_Visite.html

[kaylin]

Thank you both for your information. I'll go ahead and purchase tickets to the Vatican as well ahead of time on the website. I've already got tickets to the Colosseum.

 

Kay

[Megan Jo]

Make sure you get there early. We thought it closed at 3:30 also and the last ticket is sold at 2:30 and we missed it and it was our last day in Rome. So now we have to go back just to see the Vatican Museum!!!