St. Peter's Basilica Dome to Underground Grottoes Tour
Description
Discover St. Piter's Basilica ( one of the finest cathedrals) on a guided tour small group with a professional art historian. Enjoy a rare bird's- eye view over Rome with this tour that's includes a climb to the top of it's dome.
Tour Options
Itinerary
The most famous and the biggest square of the Vatican City. In the middle of the huge square enjoy the Obelisk from Egypt (over 2500 years old) Start your tour in St. Peters Square and perceive the all-embracing character of its majestic architecture. Understand the game of visual effects as were thought by its designer, Bernini, and find the two "special" spots in the square.
Enjoy a visit to the Papal Grottoes, the vast crypt under St. Peter's Basilica. Built 3 meters below the level of the Basilica, they are located just under the great altar in the middle of the central nave. Here, you can see where hundreds of popes and members of royalty have been buried since the 11th century.
After entering the Basilica, you will discover the beautiful artworks that fill its space. While walking on the colorful marbles, you will be mesmerized by the enormous dimension of the building and the ceilings entirely covered in gold. Here the guide will take you through the main highlights. You will discover the incredible Papal Altar under Bernini's Baldachin, and marvel at Michelangelo's other timeless masterpiece, La Pietà, as you explore the most important church in the Christian world.
From the highest point within vatican, admire breathtaking and panoramic views of the city, including the vatican gardens below. Keep your camera ready to click beautiful panoramic views.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries
- Not recommended for pregnant travelers
- Not recommended for travelers with poor cardiovascular health
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
Reviews(209)
We made the guided tour of the Basilica of St. Peter in Portuguese with Martinho da Silva and it was unforgettable! We and another couple of young friends chose the guided tour to get to know a little about the stories and curiosities of the place, but the Martinho delivered us much more than we imagined! Not only did it make our tour extremely enriching, but also very fun. We started the tour punctually at the scheduled time, we walked to the entrance of the Basilica where Martinho made the question of learning the name of each, that we catch the smallest queue and helped everyone in front to move faster through the magazine to optimize our visit. He briefly introduced us to the history of the Basilica, Roman Christianity and other Vatican monuments. Inside the Basilica and underground, he explained the history of popes, saints, structures and sculptures in a light, fun and intriguing way. We ended the tour extremely happy and realized thanks to the dear Martinho! We hope to be back soon for more tours like this!
Very positive experience, very knowledgeable and friendly. Highly recommended
Our tour guide Alexandria was wonderful. It was definitely worth going with a tour guide to bypass the long lines. She also was able to get us up to the Dome which is limited access.
Hello, thank you very much for your comment. We truly appreciate that you value the quality and hard work of our guides
First, the meet up point in the document was not correct and we had to be led to another location - not that big of a deal. We believed this to be a skip the line tour but it was not. We ended up leaving the line because it would have taken the rest of the day to even begin the tour. The tour operator was just not that friendly. I would NOT recommend this tour agency but would find another to use.
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Best way to see the Basilica, the underground, and the Dome. It’s worth the money and the information you get with a guide. Our guide was amazing. He had the right amount of information, a pleasant sense of humor and gave us a little time to ourselves to take photos.
Thank you very much for this great review. An excellent comment is always a good fuel that drives us to improve our services
Booked a small group “less than 10 people” and they put us with other groups, over 25 people. It was a “2 hour tour” but really that meant we waited in line for 1hr 45 min and then had a 9 minute tour of St Peter’s. Tour guide was not knowledgeable and hard to understand.
Daniel Zapata. Excellent guide. Lo, it makes it super interesting. I really recommend it!
I thought the tour was extremely well done and very interesting. This tour was not skip the line so we had to wait a long time to get in. The tour guide filled the time with the early history for Christianity up to the present. I have hearing aids and cannot use the traditional type but they provided me with the kind I can use. She took us around the Vatican and explained a lot before our trip to the crypt. I expected the crypt to be very small and dusty but it wasn't. It was large and very interesting. After that some people went to the dome but we were tired and decided just to go back to the Bascilica.
Went here with my parents, pretty place and amazing guide named Paulo. Also met some lovely guys in our group. If they see this… hi I was the girl with the digital camera. Feel free to reach out :) You can take some beautiful pictures in the church.
We visited S.Pfdietro.and climbed the dome with a Peruvian guide who speaks perfect Italian Daniel Zapata. He was kind, exhaustive and told many anecdotes. I highly recommend it
