The Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums funnel you through four kilometres of popes’ collecting toward one ceiling, and the walk itself is the point: the Map Gallery’s painted Italy, Raphael’s rooms, then Michelangelo’s Last Judgment silencing a packed chapel. Nowhere holds more art per metre.

• The Sistine Chapel, the ceiling and the Last Judgment; find a wall bench and stay a while.
• The Raphael Rooms, the School of Athens, one door before the chapel crush.
• The Gallery of Maps, 120 metres of frescoed 16th-century Italy.
• The Belvedere Courtyard, Laocoön and Apollo, the sculptures that taught the Renaissance.

Book the skip-line entry and go at opening, or take the Friday-evening openings when they run. The chapel’s right-rear door exits toward St Peter’s and its separate queue; plan the basilica for early another morning.

Ottaviano metro is ten minutes from the museum entrance, which sits along the wall north of St Peter’s Square. Knees and shoulders covered, chapel photography is not allowed, and both are enforced.