Easter at the Vatican, Holy Week with the Pope without losing the museums

Holy Week is when the Vatican works most like a church and least like a museum. The Pope leads nearly every liturgy, the square fills with olive branches and then with flowers, and visiting hours bend round the services. Here’s how 2026 played out, where each event actually happens, because not all of it is inside the walls, and how I’d fit the museums in without clashing with anything.

One week, three stages

The first thing to grasp is that the Pope’s Holy Week doesn’t all happen in one place. In 2026 Palm Sunday, 29 March, opened with the procession and 10:00 Mass in St Peter’s Square. Maundy Thursday morning brought the Chrism Mass in the basilica at 09:30, but in the afternoon Leo XIV crossed Rome to celebrate the Lord’s Supper at St John Lateran, the city’s cathedral, with the washing of feet.

Good Friday split in two again. At 17:00, the Celebration of the Passion in St Peter’s. At 21:15, the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum. The Easter Vigil was on Saturday at 21:00 in the basilica, and on Easter Sunday Mass was back outdoors in the square, followed by the Easter message and the Urbi et Orbi blessing from the Central Loggia at noon.

Is the Pope’s Way of the Cross at the Vatican?

No, and it’s the most common mix-up. The Good Friday Way of the Cross is held at the Colosseum, in the middle of ancient Rome, and ends with the Pope’s apostolic blessing. If that’s what you want to see, don’t wait in St Peter’s Square, because nothing happens there that night. I’d choose either the afternoon Passion in the basilica or the evening Way of the Cross, rather than rushing to squeeze in both.

Free tickets, and the ones I’d go for

Liturgies led by the Pope have free tickets, applied for online through the Papal Household’s Prefecture after registering, just as for Wednesdays. How that portal works is in the papal audience explained, and the other ways to catch Leo XIV in person are in how to see the Pope.

If I had to choose, I’d apply for the Easter Vigil. It’s the most solemn celebration of the liturgical year, it begins in darkness and it happens inside St Peter’s Basilica, not on a big screen at the back of the square. Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are outdoors and draw bigger crowds, and there what matters is reaching security early, in the right-hand arc of the colonnade.

Olive branches, then Dutch flowers

Two details strike me as the loveliest part of these days, and hardly anyone mentions them. For Palm Sunday 2026 the Governorate handed out 120 palms and 120,000 olive sprigs from Umbria, along with braided palmurelli from Sanremo. And on Easter Sunday the square was dressed in flowers grown in the Netherlands, 65,000 tulip, daffodil and hyacinth bulbs, 7,800 cut flowers and 80 azaleas. The gift has come every year since 1985, and 2026 was its fortieth. If you go on Sunday, look at the flowers before you look up at the loggia. The whole square, colonnade and all, is covered in St Peter’s Square.

Museums, dome and necropolis over Easter

The Vatican Museums don’t close for Holy Week. They open Monday to Saturday on normal hours, shut on Sunday as usual and always close on Easter Monday, which in 2026 was 6 April. In 2026 the calendar was kind, because Palm Sunday was also the last Sunday of March and entry was free. In 2027 it works the other way. Easter falls on 28 March, the last Sunday of the month, and the official calendar marks it closed, as it does Monday the 29th.

The necropolis closed from Thursday to Sunday, 2 to 5 April. The dome opens on holidays, but the basilica warns it can shut for papal ceremonies, and at Easter access to the church itself may be restricted. Everything that opens and closes, with times, is in Vatican opening hours.

How I’d plan Holy Week here

I’d put the museums on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday morning of Holy Week, when no major liturgy gets in the way. Mind the Wednesday, though, because in 2026 there was a general audience on 1 April, so that day I’d do the museums in the afternoon. Thursday and Friday I’d keep for the basilica and the liturgies, Saturday night for the Vigil and Sunday for the square. If your dates are still open, I weigh Easter against the rest of the year in the best time to visit Vatican City.

One more thing changes straight afterwards. From Easter Monday until Pentecost, the Pope’s Sunday midday prayer stops being the Angelus and becomes the Regina Coeli, at the same time, as I explain in the Angelus.