Vatican Gardens Tour

Walking tour of the Vatican Gardens

A walking tour is the standard way to visit the Vatican Gardens, and a guide must be with you. Wikipedia says individuals and pre-formed groups of sixteen or more may visit the gardens only with a tour guide present. So a vatican gardens guided tour is not an upgrade. It is the entry itself.

Pope Francis opened the gardens to the public in 2014. They cover about 23 hectares, roughly half of Vatican City, and the highest point is 60 metres above sea level. Expect slopes and wear comfortable shoes.

On the route you pass fountains, sculptures and planted terraces from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The grounds also hold Vatican Radio and the Governor's Palace. The story starts in 1279, when Pope Nicholas III enclosed the area with walls and planted an orchard, a lawn and a garden.

Dress modestly. The Vatican Museums say entry to the Museums, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Gardens is permitted only to appropriately dressed visitors. That means no sleeveless or low-cut tops, no shorts above the knee, no miniskirts and no hats.

I could not confirm how long a gardens tour lasts, so check the duration on your booking page. The one family tour with a stated length, Capturing Nature for children aged 6 to 12, runs two hours in Italian and English, and you can visit the Museums afterward at no added cost.

Open-bus tour of the Vatican Gardens

Some visits to the gardens use a vehicle, and visitors like it because the grounds sit on steep hills. I cannot confirm that a dedicated open-bus or minibus product exists, or which slots use one. One reviewer on the gardens' map listing described a bus tour that reached the helicopter pad and the railway station, and thought not walking was a blessing.

Treat that as one traveler's account, not a promise. The format can differ by slot, so read the transport line on the booking page before you pay. If you have limited mobility or dislike hills, that line matters more than anything else on the listing.

If you see a hop-on hop-off bus sold as a Vatican Gardens bus tour, check what it includes. A bus ride past the walls is not a guided visit inside the gardens, and the guide rule above still applies.

Ready to see prices? Vatican: Museums & Sistine Chapel Entrance Ticket, from $36See times →

Vatican Gardens tour combined with Museums

You can book the gardens and the Museums on the same day, but they are two bookings, not one ticket. The Museums ticket covers the Museums and the Sistine Chapel on the day it is issued, and the gardens are listed as a separate visit.

Both sit on the Viale Vaticano side of the walls. The map listing shows the gardens open 9 am to 6 pm Monday to Saturday, and the Museums 8 am to 8 pm on the same days. Both are closed on Sunday. Your ticket shows the real slot, so trust it over any listing.

My suggestion: book the gardens slot first, then add a Museums entry that fits around it. A rushed Sistine Chapel visit makes for a tired garden walk. For the museum half, a Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel guided tour adds context, and a Vatican City tour shows how the main stops fit together.

A Vatican gardens and Sistine Chapel tour, or any gardens and museum tour, is therefore a two-part day. The tours below are Museums products, not gardens tours, so read each inclusion list. Walking tours with a guide are also easier to match to a small-group Vatican tour if you prefer fewer people.

Vatican Gardens tour price

I could not confirm a gardens tour price, so check the live calendar for yours. What the official pages do state are the Museums prices, which is the part most visitors add on the same day. Dollar figures use the ECB reference rate of 1.1165 USD per euro on 2026-11-06.

The only official site for buying tickets online is tickets.museivaticani.va, and the Museums warn about look-alike sites that may charge much more. Museums tickets are valid on the day of issue only and cannot be refunded, so confirm the date before you pay.

Is it worth it? I think so if you already have the Museums and St. Peter's on your list and want a quieter, greener angle. Skip it if you have only a few hours in Rome and have not seen the Sistine Chapel.

Book a gardens tour

Book the gardens on the official Vatican Museums portal. The Choose your tour page lists the Vatican Gardens as its own visit, next to Castel Gandolfo and the Necropolis of the Via Triumphalis.

If you want the ticket side in detail, read how do I get tickets to the Vatican Gardens. Steps: pick the gardens visit, choose a Monday to Saturday date, check the time slot and language, then save the confirmation. Read the meeting point, because arriving late can cost you the slot.

To compare every guided format, see our Vatican Tours hub. For a smaller group, look at a private Vatican tour. If you only need the Museums half, compare Vatican Museum tickets first.

I am an independent guide, not the official ticket office. The GetYourGuide tours above are affiliate links, and none of them is a gardens tour.