Enjoy the skip the line for the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel combined with a delicious aperitif in the beautiful setting of the Pinecone Courtyard.
The Vatican Museums are one of the most prestigious and fascinating cultural destinations in the world. The collections gathered over the years by successive popes offer a unique journey through centuries of art, history and spirituality.
Inside the Vatican Museums you can admire works of art by some of the greatest masters in history. Among the most famous masterpieces are the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, created by the genius of Michelangelo, Raphael Rooms decorated with frescoes by the great Renaissance painter Raphael and his school, the Gallery of Maps, a long corridor decorated with maps representing Italy as it was known in the 16th century, the Pio Clementino Museum, the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, the Gregorian Etruscan Museum, the Chiaramonti Museum and the Pinacoteca containing works by artists such as Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto and Perugino, just to give some example.
Complete your experience with a delicious aperitif at the Pinecone Courtyard, a large open space of 300 square meters adjacent to the corridors and halls of the museum. Its name is due to the huge bronze cone in the courtyard. It stands at the top of a double ramp staircase designed by Michelangelo.
Your aperitif includes:
1 cocktail or soft drinks
still or sparking water
Red pizzette
Selection of cheeses and cold cuts
Capressin finger
Porchetta di Ariccia with homemade bread
Rice, potato croquettes
Cous cous à la Méditerranée
Don't miss to admire the other important sculpture in the courtyard: the “Sphere Within Sphere” by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, donated to the Vatican Museums in 1990. Pomodoro’s circular sphere has a mechanism inside that slowly rotates with the wind.