Two days at the Vatican, including the parts you book ahead

One day shows you the Vatican from the postcards. Two show you the one hardly anybody sees, and for what it costs I think the difference is huge. The catch is that day two cannot be improvised. An office allocates your Scavi slot, the Gardens are sold with the Museums and Castel Gandolfo runs to its own calendar. That is what sets the order of this plan.

What a second day buys you

Above all, time to stop rushing. With a single day the afternoon at the basilica and the dome is tight and the Scavi drop out. With two, the first takes the essentials and the second takes everything you book, and neither eats into the other.

I would choose the pair of days before buying anything. The second day, as I have built it, must fall Monday to Friday and not on a Tuesday. The Scavi only run in the afternoon on weekdays, since on Saturdays they close at 13.00, and the Papal Palace at Castel Gandolfo shuts on Tuesdays. Monday and Wednesday, or Thursday and Friday, work well, as long as that Wednesday is not an audience you want to attend.

Day one, the Vatican everybody comes for

It has the same backbone as one day in Vatican City, minus the ticking clock. Museums at 8.00 on a booked ticket, the Sistine Chapel at around 10.30, lunch outside the walls, then the basilica and the dome in the afternoon on one €17 online ticket. The dome shuts at 18.00 until late October, and because the winter timetable that follows has not been published yet, I would not leave it to the last minute.

If the Vatican Gardens matter to you, this is the day to fit them in. The guided Gardens and Museums tour costs €45 and lasts about three hours, and the same ticket then lets you into the Museums. It is the only way to walk those 22 hectares, half the country, without paying for the Museums twice. Booking and routes are covered in visiting the Vatican Gardens.

Castel Gandolfo in the morning, the Scavi after lunch

Day two begins at Termini, on an FL4 regional heading for Albano. Castel Gandolfo lies 24 km out, above Lake Albano, and although it belongs to the Holy See it stands on Italian soil. On weekdays you can enter the Papal Palace from 9.00 to 13.00, it closes at 14.30, and a ticket is €12. Show the previous day’s Museums booking and it drops to €8, one of those small savings almost nobody claims. With an hour to spare, the gardens of Villa Barberini take about 50 minutes by electric minibus for €15. Everything about the town and the palace is in my guide to Castel Gandolfo.

Back in Rome, the afternoon belongs to the Vatican Necropolis. You do not pick the time; the office assigns it, and on weekdays the last tour leaves at 16.15. Arrive ten minutes early and use only the Via Paolo VI entrance. If you are given 9.00, flip the day round. Scavi first, train afterwards, and you still reach the palace before last entry at 13.00.

How do I see the Pope with two days?

Make one of them a Wednesday or a Sunday. On Wednesday there is the general audience, which costs nothing if you request a ticket from the Prefecture, and I would swap Castel Gandolfo for the audience that morning. On Sunday there is the Angelus at 12.00 from the window of the Pope’s study, no ticket needed. The Scavi and the Gardens are closed that day, but the Papal Palace opens from 10.00 to 17.00, so the Angelus in the morning and Castel Gandolfo after lunch fit together nicely. The practical side is all in my guide on how to see the Pope. Watch November, though, since the Pope is away in South America from the 6th to the 17th.

Borgo and Prati as the light fades

Once you are out of the Scavi there is nothing left to book, and it is the best moment for the two districts wrapped around the Vatican. Borgo grew up around pilgrims, and Santo Spirito in Sassia began taking them in as early as about 727. On the corner of Borgo Pio and Via del Campanile a circle cut into the stone once fixed the minimum size of a loaf in times of famine, and above the streets runs the Passetto, the 800-metre corridor Clement VII used to escape to Castel Sant’Angelo in 1527.

Prati is a different Rome, broader and tidier, with avenues and Umbertine and modernist buildings. Piazza Cavour with the Palace of Justice, Via Cola di Rienzo for the shops, and for dinner an area the city’s tourist board describes in terms of refined cooking and aperitivo bars. Tables and markets are covered in where to eat around St Peter’s.

Where to stay so you lose no time

With this plan I would stay in Prati. On day one you walk to the Museums, on day two metro line A at Ottaviano gets you to Termini for the train, and on your return the Scavi and dinner are close by. Borgo is lovelier for an evening stroll, but for two days with a train in the middle Prati handles the logistics better. I compare the two in the guide on where to stay near the Vatican, and the scores behind every choice are in what to see in Vatican City.