The tour includes car pick up from the hotel, sightseeing on the way to the Vatican, walking tour in the Vatican Museums, Raphael’s Rooms, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica, sightseeing on the way back to the hotel.

The tour is for individuals as well as for small groups; and it includes private guide, private car transfers and museum tickets.

While planning the visit to the Vatican please bear in mind that on Sundays Vatican Museums are closed and that entrance in to churches requires appropriate attire (no shorts, miniskirts or uncovered shoulders).

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Popes in their secular role gradually came to govern neighbouring regions and, through the Papal States, ruled a large portion of the Italian peninsula for more than a thousand years until the mid 19th century, when most of the territory of the Papal States was seized by the newly created Kingdom of Italy. For much of this time the Vatican was not the habitual residence of the Popes, but rather the Lateran Palace, and in recent centuries, the Quirinal Palace, while the residence from 1309-1377 was at Avignon in France.

In 1870, the Pope's holdings were left in an uncertain situation when Rome itself was annexed by the Piedmontese after a nominal resistance of the papal forces. The popes were left between 1870 and 1929 in a situation somewhat like that of the last emperor of China, undisturbed in their palace, but with no official status recognized by the Italian State. Other states maintained international recognition of the Holy See as a sovereign entity, and in practice Italy made no attempt to interfere with the Holy See. During this period it became fashionable to speak of the Pope as a "prisoner". This situation was resolved on February 11, 1929 under the premiership of Mussolini by the three Lateran treaties, which established the independent State of the Vatican City and granted Catholicism special status in Italy. The cathedra (official seat) of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is in the Lateran basilica, Rome's cathedral. The Lateran is on one of the seven hills of Rome, the Caelian. In 1984, a new concordat between the Holy See and Italy modified certain provisions of the earlier treaty, including the position of Catholicism as the Italian state religion. Learn more about Vatican City...

External links

• Vatican City official website
• Map of Vatican City
• stpetersbasilica.org Largest online source for St. Peter's in the Vatican
• Vaticano web
• The Vatican City.
• Travel guide to Vatican City from Wikitravel
• Vatican City, Piazza San Pietro VR panorama with map and compass effect by Tolomeus