It’s a country that’s surged back into the news this week following the death of Pope Francis - and I had the chance to visit the Vatican City just a few years ago.
The Vatican City is the world’s smallest country, according to Britannica. Measuring just 0.17 square miles across, it’s even more tiny than it’s next-smallest rivals, tax haven Monaco (0.8 square miles) and remote pacific island Nauru (8 square miles).
The Vatican City is not an independent sovereign state that’s a member of the UN in its own right - but the city-state microstate has its own flag, and according to the complex way the Vatican is administered, has “sovereign authority and jurisdiction of the Holy See”, which is itself a sovereign entity under international law.
So with that cleared up, I had the chance to visit the Vatican a few years ago. In the middle of Italy’s capital city, Rome, the Vatican attracts tourists from all over the world who want the chance to see this famous and holy building in person and technically leave Italian soil at the same time.
To get there, you need to book tickets - you can’t just waltz in - and queue up nearby. But no, you don’t need a passport or visa - the Vatican has an open border policy with Italy, so if you have the legal right to be in Italy (how else did you get in?), then you have the legal right to be in the Vatican, too. But you may be asked to produce a valid form of ID to check your ticket name against your name, so you might end up using a passport for this anyway.
Several parts of the Vatican - namely St Peter’s Basilica and St Peter’s Square - are free to enter, but the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel both require paid tickets to get in.
Some tourism firms offer packages which will take you around every part of the Vatican, including paid queue jump tickets for the Basilica and entry to the other buildings all baked into one ticket, with a walking guide as well, which is what I did.
At the point just before the Sistine Chapel, there are velvet red ropes across the edges of the queue zone, which makes visiting this holy site and nation feel a bit like waiting for a ride at Alton Towers. Having sourced a tourist excursion firm online, it was just a case of finding the meeting point for our company and then joining the right queue to get ‘across the border’ and into the right lines for the various buildings themselves, just as many thousands of people are doing this very week to see Pope Francis’s body lying-in-state.
After about an hour of queuing (and this was during normal times, not this week), the throng shuffled inside the Sistine Chapel which, of course, includes the famous frescoes painted by Michelangelo, which was more breathtaking in person than any photos do it justice. The sheer scale of the inside of the chapel, and the magnificence of the artwork, is well worth seeing first hand.
The only rule we were given was: strictly no photography, which was surprising, and security staff on hand nearby told several people to put away phones and cameras. In fact, use of mobile phones is strictly forbidden inside the Sistine Chapel and strongly discouraged in all other parts of the Vatican.
According to the Vatican’s tourism website, there are also several other rules to be aware of: you must ‘dress appropriately’ - sleeveless, low cut tops or shorts that end ‘above the knee’ are banned, as are hats.
Any jewellery or even tattoos that “may offend Catholic religion” are also banned, though I must admit I didn’t see anyone turned away for tattoos or clothing when I was queuing, the only rule I witnessed being enforced was the mobile rule - so if you can part from your phone, you can pay your papal respects to Pope Francis without any problem.
