Early Entry Vatican Breakfast – A Unique Rome Experience

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Vatican Breakfast

Looking for the the best way to see the Vatican? Here’s an experience that’s off the Roman rails. Have you heard of the Vatican early entry breakfast?

Offered through the Vatican Museums itself, or available through tour companies, you’ll get skip-the-line tickets, early Vatican access and discover a unique thing to do in Rome.

Early Morning Vatican Tour

My husband, Mark, turned over in his sleep and yanked the sheet tucked under my neck so hard I woke up wondering why someone was trying to strangle me.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“5:30 a.m.” My eyes opened to slits. “We could have slept until 6:15.”

“You’re the one who wants to go.”

It wasn’t our best moment. It was our last day in Rome, we were sightsee-ed out and we were going to the Vatican for breakfast.

Early Access to the Vatican

Yet I felt a little thrill because we were going to see the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel without the crowds. Our Vatican Museum early entrance breakfast meant we’d be there before other early access tours, and nearly two hours before the museum was open to the public.

Surely it’s the best way to visit the Vatican, I thought, yet few people seem to know about it.

A One of a Kind Experience in Rome

It had taken a week to convince Mark it was the best way to see the Vatican, and we’d only booked the night before.

“What if it’s one of those unmissable morning experiences like Angkor Wat at sunrise?” I’d asked. “You have to admit it’s unique. It probably even trumps the skeleton chandeliers in the Capuchin Crypt.”

Vatican City Without the Crowds

The best part would be seeing the Vatican without hordes of tourists. The last time I’d gone to the Vatican City Museums I’d waited in line for two hours, then shuffled down the long corridors in the midst of a thrum of people. It wasn’t a heavenly experience. It was more like being in a magnificent metro at rush hour.

“Full English breakfast,” I reminded Mark, because food is usually the most direct route to his heart.

Evidently his heart wasn’t awake yet because he groaned and went into the shower.

“We’ll be the first ones in,” I shouted through the door.

What Is Early Entrance Breakfast at the Vatican?

A Vatican Museum breakfast includes entry and a buffet breakfast served in either the Restaurant Area or the Pinecone Courtyard of the Vatican Museums, depending on the season. It starts at 7:15 a.m., though you should be there by 7.

Once you’ve eaten your substantial hot breakfast with up to 30 other people, away you go into the Vatican Museums and towards the Sistine Chapel an hour before it’s open to the public.

Alone (almost) in the Vatican. Can you imagine it?

Booking Early Entry Vatican Breakfast Tours

You can book a Vatican breakfast through the official Vatican website, but we found it confusing. (I have more info on how to do it at the end of this article.) The good thing about booking on the official website was that we were able to book the night before, when it was too late to go through a travel agency.

If you prefer the ease of booking your Vatican breakfast tickets through a tour company, the ones I found were:

• • Vatican Museums Early Entry Tour with Buffet Breakfast – Semi Private Tour from $98. Check availability here.
  • Vatican Museums: Private Guided Tour with Breakfast in the Pinecone Courtyard from $110. If you want to see the Sistine Chapel before you eat, this is an option. Check availability here.
  • Rome: Vatican Skip-the-line Museum and Sistine Chapel Tour with Breakfast from $82. Check availability here.

 

Getting to Vatican City Early from Central Rome

Vatican City is on the west side of the Tiber River, across from the historical centre of Rome.

When I’d envisioned our lavish Vatican breakfast surrounded by 14th-century altarpieces and plush velvet curtains I’d also pictured us strolling hand-in-hand through a delicate rose sunrise to the Vatican entrance. We would cross the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the Bridge of Angels, much as the medieval pilgrims used to do.

Instead we were tired and cranky so we just got a cab.

At that time of morning taking a taxi to St Peter’s Square is fast, but you can also take the metro to Cipro – Musei Vaticani, about a 10-minute walk to the Vatican entrance.

The Vatican Breakfast Early Entry Experience

Outside we waited in a misty rain with about 20 other people. Promptly at 7:15 we were let in. As there is no one else at the Vatican at this time, security was a breeze, even for the sleepiest of tourists.

The Restaurant Area

We were led to the Restaurant Area. Seriously, that’s what it’s called. The Restaurant Area had two long tables and a side wall buffet, not a masterpiece in sight. I couldn’t help thinking the decor wasn’t much more elaborate than its name.

The Pine Cone Courtyard Vatican Breakfast

If you visit between April and November you eat outside in the Pinecone Courtyard, the Cortile della Pigna, which has a much better ring to it than the Restaurant Area. Plus it has a colossal bronze Pine Cone cast in the 1st or 2nd century AD.

With 1400 rooms in the Vatican they couldn’t have found something more ornate, I wondered? While I didn’t expect to be eating scrambled eggs by candlelight under Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, what about the Gallery of Tapestries or the Hall of Animals? A little alcove with a Caravaggio?

“Bacon!” I said, trying to divert Mark’s attention away from the plain surroundings in case he threw me an I-told-you-so look.

What Is the Vatican Breakfast Buffet like?

Admittedly, the buffet was good. Bacon, sausages, fresh fruit, pancakes, toast, pastries, coffee, cappuccino, tea. The caffeine hit woke me up and I tried to strike up a conversation with the people around us. After all, this was a unique shared experience. The Vatican is the heart of Christianity – a wellspring of spirituality, history and art.

No one seemed interested so I ate another croissant.

It didn’t matter. As soon as I saw the headsets being handed out my sense of shared community evaporated in my desire to be first to the Sistine Chapel.

Tour Guide or Audio Headset?

We would have booked the Vatican tour with breakfast that includes a guide, but it was full, so we’d opted for headsets. The good thing about an audioguide is that you can wander through the Vatican any way you like. The bad thing? It’s harder to follow than an actual guide.

It took only a minute to get the headsets then we waited at the entryway like racehorses poised to charge down the track. Early access tours were trickling in, and I didn’t want them getting ahead of us.

“The thing to do is get to the Sistine Chapel as fast as you can,” I told Mark under my breath. “I read it on the Internet. Don’t get sidetracked or we’ll be sharing the Sistine Chapel with a million other tourists.”

How Big is the Vatican?

Mark turned away but I’m pretty sure he was rolling his eyes. The distance from the Vatican Museums entrance to the Sistine Chapel is about 500 metres if you go direct, but there are some 7.5 km (4.5 miles) of galleries and corridors in total.

Dating back to 1503, the museums hold a jaw-dropping collection of Renaissance paintings, antiquities, priceless tapestries and religious and secular art. There’s even a marble chariot. The chances of getting sidetracked are high.

But I was on a mission and as soon as 8 a.m. struck I was ready to sprint.

It worked. Mark and I were the first ones into the Vatican Museums.

It was a split second moment of triumph because we were quickly overtaken by a tour leader holding a flag.

“Hurry!” I said to Mark over my shoulder as I hurtled down the Gallery of Maps, a long hallway that connects the Papal Palace to the Sistine Chapel. Sixteenth-century frescoes showing the regions of Italy whizzed by my sight and I was barely aware of the elaborate ceiling paintings overhead.

“Why?” he said.

I stopped, nearly causing a pileup of Sistine Chapel-bound tourists behind me.

Top Things to See at the Vatican Palace

Sistine Chapel

Much as I hated to admit it, Mark had a point. Why was I hurrying? While the Sistine Chapel is the number one draw in a Vatican tour, it’s at the far end of the tour route, and you’ll be passing room after room of masterpieces.

Vatican Masterpieces

What about Caravaggio’s The Entombment of Christ, Leonardo da Vinci’s St. Jerome in the Wilderness, the Belvedere Torso and the ancient Greek masterpiece Laocoon and his Sons?

What about the Stefaneschi Triptych by Giotto and the Porphyry Basin Nero used to bathe in? We were passing them by in our flight.

“You’re right,” I said.

The Raphael Rooms

We veered off the papal highway and that’s how we ended up in the Raphael Rooms completely alone. Painted in the early 1500s, this suite of four rooms are dripping in frescoes by Raphael and his workshop.

The rooms were originally part of the apartments of Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope who, in addition to being known to engage in warfare in the name of the church, kickstarted the Vatican Museums by donating his collection.

It’s a miracle, I thought, looking around The Room of the Fire of the Borgo. It’s just us and the frescoes. For the first time since we’d been in the Vatican, history seemed to come alive, shades of the Renaissance seeping out of the stone archways and intricately-tiled floors.

Saint Peter’s Basilica

After you see the Sistine Chapel and leave the palace there are other top sights to see in the Vatican City. Saint Peter’s Basilica, of course. A standard Vatican breakfast early entry route will lead you to the basilica after you leave the Sistine Chapel – it’s almost impossible to miss.

 

Don’t Rush Through the Galleries

Once we’d decided to slow down, it was a different experience. We wandered through gallery after gallery. At one point we got lost in a stairwell. I wasn’t even upset (hardly) that we missed the Caravaggio in the Pinacoteca, because there was so much else to see.

Breakfast at the Vatican is a unique way to experience Rome, and seeing the Sistine Chapel with only a few other tour groups is a marvellous feat, but taking it slow and enjoying the whole experience rather than beelining for one top sight is the best way to see the Vatican of all.

PS: And the Sistine Chapel still wasn’t crowded when we got there.