The Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo in six hours

The route, stop by stop

1. 1
   Vatican Museums

   Centuries of papal collecting, ending in the Sistine Chapel, whose ceiling Michelangelo painted between 1508 and 1512 and whose Last Judgement he added two decades later. Book the earliest entry.

   150 min here Read guide → Get tickets on Tiqets → Walk here →
2. 2
   St Peter's Basilica

   The largest church in Christendom, over the tomb of St Peter. Michelangelo's Pietà is in the first chapel on the right, and the climb to the top of the dome is 551 steps, or 320 if you take the lift partway.

   60 min here Read guide → Get tickets on Tiqets → Walk here →
3. 3
   St Peter's Square

   Bernini's colonnade is four columns deep. From either of the marked discs between the obelisk and the fountains, the four rows line up as one.

   15 min here Walk here →
4. 4
   Castel Sant'Angelo

   Hadrian's mausoleum, turned into a fortress and joined to the Vatican by a raised escape passage that Pope Clement VII fled along in the sack of 1527. The terrace looks back at St Peter's.

   60 min here Read guide → Get tickets on Tiqets → Walk here →
5. 5
   Ponte Sant'Angelo

   Hadrian's bridge to his tomb, lined with ten angels carrying the instruments of the Passion, designed by Bernini and carved by his workshop.

   15 min here Walk here →