After-hours Vatican TourThis is a personal recommendation and not an advertisement. My wife and I are pretty cheap travelers, meaning we really do all we can to stretch our budgets, sometimes to extremes. With that said, there are sometimes when you just have to do something regardless of the cost. Taking the After-hours Vatican Museum tour through Helen Donnegan's Italy With Us group became one of those things.
In December 2006, we did the normal tour. We booked through the Vatican and had a nice time. However, the Museums are some of the world's most visited and being herded through with tens of thousands of others was not exactly the most enjoyable of visits. We are not religious, but we are art and history buffs, so the Vatican Museums are very important to us in that regard.
After our return, last year, we learned of the private after-hours tour and decided that if we could find a way to swing it, on our next Rome trip, that was going to be our big splurge. Helen Donnegan was one of our first contacts after we booked the trip. It was one of the best things we have done!
Our tour was set for 5pm on the evening of December 27th. As we are walking up to the museum entrance, we are passing the massive flood of people exiting from the normal day's admissions. We had pretty much decided we would not do that again, whether we got the after-hours tour or not.
Helen owns the company and at one time did museum tours. Now, she has a select group of highly skilled guides do the tour for her. In our case, there were probably 25 people for the entire tour. This group is then broken into smaller groups matched to your own guide. In our case, there were 6 of us with Christopher Longhurst as our guide.
Chris is working on his doctoral dissertation on theology through the Vatican. He has a masters in art history. At the end of the tour I gave him the greatest compliment I could give someone that speaks with others, he is a “story teller”. He weaves a tale, providing massive amounts of detail and information. No question is too off-beat, no detail is too small to ignore.
You enter the museum. It is you, your fellow group members, your guide and a guard. Now the fun begins. You wander through the museum, you can spend time inspecting, looking, enjoying, contemplating, wondering. You see details you never thought possible. Chris fills you with information in a way that you find captivating.
From 2006 I have a video of the map room during normal hours. Jam packed with people, pushing, shoving, like a human wave. In 2007 my video camera was placed on the floor at one end of the Map Room. The frame goes to the other end, 450 feet away. The only other person is the cleaning lady. The only sound is that of her mop on the floor.
In the tapestry room you have the time to view the optical illusions over and over. Seeing details you would have never guessed even existed in the normal tour. You aren't being rushed, you aren't being trampled, you don't feel like cattle going to slaughter. It is civilized.
Finally, we end up in the Sistine Chapel. The last time it was wall-to-wall people. Guards clapping hands, shusshing “NO TALKING, NO PICTURES”. This time, just a couple of dozen of us, the guards standing away from the small groups, while Chris weaves his tale of the chapel, the Pope and Michelangelo. You can view the most minute of details, without feeling like you are part of some weird mob. It is serene and relaxing. It is quiet and fulfilling.
There is no real rush, but after almost an hour in the chapel, the guard does finally come over and politely tells us we should have left 25 minutes earlier.
Chris gathers us up and we slowly move out. But he continues to point out things even as we are leaving.
The cost of the tour is 250 euros per person. I've read where some have said no tour is worth that kind of money. I beg to differ. Not only was it worth it, I would do it again without a question, it was perhaps the best value I have gotten on any vacation. People think nothing of dropping 100 euros on a meal that is soon gone. For just a bit more, you can have an experience and memories that you will talk about for the rest of your life.
Oh, and how good was it? My 20 year old college student daughter saved her money all semester so she could also do the tour. She said it was worth every penny.
You can reach Helen Donnegan at...
www.italywithus.biz
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Christopher Longhurt does private tours of St. Peters and other places. You can contact him at...
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