Are you thinking about climbing St. Peter’s Basilica’s Dome? If yes, then this blog post is just for you.
Last time Glenn and I were in Rome, we finally decided to climb the dome of the world’s largest church. And it quickly became one of our favorite things to do in Rome, so we want to share this experience with you.
In this blog post, we’ll first go through some practical information for those of you looking to climb the St. Peter’s Basilica Dome in the near future – why do it? Where to get your tickets? What are the opening hours? How much does it cost? And things to know before you start climbing the dome.
Afterwards, we’ll share our experience of climbing the Dome – from buying the tickets to standing on top of the St. Peter’s Basilica with the best views of the Vatican in front of us. And we’ll of course show you our best pictures from the experience!
We sincerely hope you will enjoy this blog post. Now let’s get started on climbing that spectacular dome!
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Information about climbing St. Peter’s Basilica Dome
Why should you climb the Dome?
St. Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in the entire world. It’s such a grand and beautiful architectural masterpiece that you just have to see it during your trip to Rome whether you want to climb the dome or not. Glenn and I actually visited St. Peter’s Basilica on 3 separate trips before we decided to climb the dome. In all honesty, we didn’t even consider it to be an option before our last trip.
Looking back at my memories now, I’m so happy that we decided to visit the dome. It was honestly such a good experience!
There are several reasons why I think you should climb St. Peter’s Basilica’s Dome.
First of all, the dome is full of history! Did you know that Michelangelo actually designed the dome? It’s made in a classic baroque style from the late Renaissance. And the dome is placed above the high altar, which covers the shrine of Saint Peter’s tomb. So standing on the balcony and looking down inside of the church is just incredible.
Secondly, the views at the top of the dome are some of the best you’ll find over Italy’s capital city. It was so amazing to stand on top of the largest church in the world’s dome and watch all of Rome beneath us! You actually get a 360 view, so you can see many corners of the city. We absolutely loved this! But the best view from the dome is definitely watching the immensity of St. Peter’s Square.
Lastly, climbing the dome of the St. Peter’s Basilica leaves you with this grand feeling. The feeling that you’ve just experienced something extraordinary. The dome is 42 meters in diameter and 136 meters high – supposedly making it the tallest dome in the entire world. Visiting this incredible architectural masterpiece is definitely not something you’ll quickly forget.
Where to get tickets to the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica
There are 2 ways to get tickets to climb the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
- Buy your tickets at the official ticket office, which is located on the right side of the basilica. Just follow the signs that says “Dome”, and you’ll eventually find the ticket office. Get in line and wait your turn. That’s what we did.
- Take a guided tour of the St. Peter’s Basilica with the dome climb included in the price. This is especially a good option for those who want some more information about the history and architecture of the building.
How much do tickets to the Dome cost?
There are two ticket types you can buy when visiting the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the price varies according to whether or not you buy access to the elevator.
The ticket most people seemed to buy was the €10 ticket which includes access to the elevator – cutting the total amount of steps short to just 320 steps. If you prefer to walk the whole way up, then you can save some money by skipping the elevator and get the €8 ticket, which leaves you with a total of 551 steps.
Glenn and I got the €8 ticket each, without the elevator, and the walk up honestly wasn’t that bad. But if you’re not very fit, yet still really want to visit the dome, then you should probably just spend the extra 2 euros and take the elevator.
If you take a tour in St. Peter’s Basilica with the dome ticket included, then you will obviously spend more than €10 because you will have a guide with you. But you’ll also learn more about this incredible building.
What are the opening hours of St. Peter’s Basilica’s Dome?
Since we visited in 2022, we want to update the opening hours for 2023. However, the internet is uncertain about the time schedule. But expect it to look like something like the table below. Please let me know in the comments if you know the correct opening hours for 2023.
| Summer (April – September) | Winter (October – March) |
|---|---|
| 8 AM – 6 PM | 8 AM – 4:45 PM |
Things to know before climbing the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica
Here are some things you should know before you set out to climb the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The climb is not for everyone, so please read this section before you get your tickets. Also, if you have any questions, then don’t hesitate to scroll down to the comment section and leave a message for me.
- Fitness level: You don’t have to be super fit to climb the dome. Yet, the word “climb” indicates that you need some form of fitness level. As mentioned, there are 551 steps to climb without the elevator, and still 320 steps to climb with the elevator. So make sure you can do this before you get your ticket.
- Claustrophobia: I’m not gonna lie. Climbing the dome was a bit claustrophobic. There are some really narrow stairways once in a while, and sometimes you have people in front of you and behind you – so you can’t move anywhere but with the line of people. So if you suffer from heavy claustrophobia, then this one simply isn’t for you.
- Dress code: Remember you’re climbing the dome of a religious building. Wear appropriate clothes that covers both your shoulders and knees. Then you won’t offend anyone.
Our experience of climbing St. Peter’s Basilica’s Dome
Hopefully, by now you have all the information in hand, so you can do the climb yourself. So in this part of the blog post, we will just add some pictures from the climb and tell you a bit about our experience of climbing the St. Peter’s Basilica Dome.
1. From the ticket office to the top of the roof
We went as early as possible in the morning to avoid spending the day in a long queue at the ticket office. And it totally worked! We only stood in line for the dome climb for 5 minutes. So we can definitely recommend you to go as early as possible.
Once it was our turn, we decided to get the €8 ticket and just do the whole walk up. We often avoid cable cars, funiculars, and other rides when it comes to climbing a monument or a small hill. I don’t know why, but the experience just often feels more intense when you’ve given some extra sweat for whatever view awaits you at the top.
However, the first part of the climb was pretty insignificant… We were walking up some sort of spiral ramp, there were no windows, and we literally didn’t meet any other people on the way. This was the ascent you could cover by the elevator, and it took us less than 10 minutes to walk in a regular pace.
And all of a sudden, we were there. At the roof. Literally standing on top of the largest church in the world. The dome was right in front of us.
2. Inside the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica
We reached the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica dome. And what an incredible experience!
Standing on a balcony so many meters above the basilica, looking down inside of the church was just… just something extraordinary. We now had a whole different perspective of the building (I remember how we later stood inside the basilica and looked up at where we had been standing).
If you’re afraid of heights like me, then this part was a bit eerie. But luckily (and for obvious reasons) they’ve covered the balcony with a fence, so you can’t fall down.
While walking inside of the dome, we noticed how the whole wall was covered in mosaics. It was so beautiful and different from what I had expected. At this point, I kind of wish I had a guide with me to tell me about the mosaics. To this day, I still don’t know who created this piece of art and what it represents.
Anyways, we spend some time walking around the inside of the dome before we continued the climb.
3. 304 steps to the top of the dome
We now had the exciting part ahead of us. The part I was most looking forward to. The dome viewpoint!
We just had to walk the remaining 304 steps to the top. And this is where things got interesting.
The last steps to the top were rather narrow, so we had to just follow the line like a herd of sheep. There was no turning back since there were people behind us, and we couldn’t move quicker than the people in front of us. So if you’re very claustrophobic, then you might want to skip this part of going all the way up to the viewpoint.
I, on the other hand, thought this part was amazing! I remember thinking to myself -I’m currently walking somewhere one the side of one of the biggest domes in the world. This was definitely the most adventurous part for me.
4. Is this the best view in Rome?
All of a sudden, the steps ended, and we could feel the air from outside. We’re here – at the top of the dome!
We walked outside and instantly saw the incredible view in front of us.
We spend some time looking into the Vatican’s garden since there wasn’t many people standing and looking at the views on this side of the dome. It was obvious that the popular place to stand was right in front of Saint Peter’s Square. So we waited patiently and slowly moved towards this view.
In the meantime, you could see so much of Rome from the dome. Monuments and old buildings. All of Rome below us! I absolutely loved it.
We had slowly approached the view over St. Peter’s Square and were finally standing here! Watching the square from above made you realize just how immense it is. The view was absolutely magnificent, but it wan’t possible to enjoy it for too long as other people were waiting their turn as well.
So after spending a total of 20 minutes on top of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, we decided it was time to climb down and give room for the newcomers at the dome.
We were honestly blown away by this view, and we really want to go back and experience it again some day – definitely one of the best views of the city.
5. Dome climb ending inside of St. Peter’s Basilica
The climb down took us 10 minutes. We only did a quick stop at the rooftop where we found some free toilets.
While climbing down, we expected to reach the ticket office again, but we were surprised when all of a sudden, the stairs ended, we opened a door, and there we were, standing right inside of St. Peter’s Basilica!
We absolutely love how our climb ended inside of the church. Even though we’d been inside of it many times before, we decided to stay for a while. There is just something grand about visiting the largest church in the entire world. Especially now that we had seen a whole new side of it.
We hope you enjoyed this blog post about how to climb the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It’s honestly one of our most favorite things to do in Rome, and we can only recommend it!
If you have any questions about the dome climb, then don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. Thank you so much for reading and happy travels!
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I also climbed the dome on 9/13/22. It was breathtaking! I climbed 45 years ago in 1978 and
remember the climb with ropes at the end.
This was not the case this time, and I wonder if
we did not get to the maximum dome height.
You mention 304 steps but 320 are referenced in other guides.
I asked an attendant about the ropes and was told they were not needed and we were at the top. I still question it. He was sitting with another attendant in a doorway off the balcony, and It appeared he was sitting on stairs that led further upward. I have a friend who visited in August and used the ropes. Hope we didn’t miss anything!
Hi DR, I love that you went back to the dome after so many years and enjoyed the views again. We also didn’t see any ropes during our visit. But it does sound pretty adventurous! Maybe they skipped that part because of the many visitors? There are a total of 320 steps from the bottom to the dome if you take the elevator. I guess the 304 steps are from inside of the dome and walking to the top. I didn’t count the steps but took pictures of the signs on the way – so this is the official count.
Thank you so much for taking your time to write this comment! I had no idea there used to be ropes involved in reaching the top.
Best, Cecilie 🙂
Thank you ! The german poet Goethe did the same in 1786, when he visited St Peter´s:
“Lastly we ascended the roof of the church, where one finds, in little, the plan of a well-built city,—houses and magazines, springs (in appearance, at least), churches, and a great temple, all in the air, and beautiful walks between. We mounted the dome, and saw glistening before us the regions of the Apennines, Soracte, and toward Tivoli, the volcanic hills,—Frascati, Castel-gandolfo, and the plains, and, beyond all, the sea. Close at our feet lay the whole city of Rome in its length and breadth, with its mountain palaces, domes, etc. Not a breath of air was moving, and in the upper dome it was (as they say) like being in a hothouse. When we had looked enough at these things, we went down, and they opened for us the doors in the cornices of the dome, the tympanum, and the nave. There is a passage all round, and from above you can take a view of the whole church and of its several parts. As we stood on the cornices of the tympanum, we saw beneath us the Pope, passing to his midday devotions. Nothing, therefore, was wanting to make our view of St. Peter’s perfect. We at last descended to the area, and took, in a neighbouring hotel, a cheerful but frugal meal, and then set off for St. Cecilia’s…”
Dear Ron, I’m touched that you took the time to share this quote from Goethe. It was very much appreciated! I hope you got to experience this incredible dome. All the best, Cecilie 🙂
We plan to be there in late October. If we don’t get any prepaid tour ticket, do we get there early like 8am (I hope is early enough), stay in line to go through security line & purchase the dome tickets afterwards to go up? Or do we have to do another line after we buy tickets? Sorry for these silly questions
Hi Rose, no worries – there are no silly questions here. Trust me, I know how it feel to try and plan everything the best way possible.
So you just go through the security line, then get in line for the dome, then buy your tickets, and go straight up. That’s at least how it worked when we did it 🙂 And yes, plan to go early when the lines are much shorter.
Enjoy Rome! Best, Cecilie
Hello Cecilie
Then, you for your informative and interesting article, it has inspired me to include this on our visit next month but I do have a question please.
If we go to the rooftop level by elevator and then my husband climbs the rest from there, will we be exiting from two different ways or will he be able to join me back on the roof level and we can continue down together to the inside of the basilica exit as you did?
Thank you!
Angela
Hi Angela, I’m so happy to hear that you found the article helpful.
From the rooftop level you enter the inside of the dome and walk up to the viewpoint on the top. After the viewpoint, you walk back down to the rooftop level before exiting – either walking down through the basilica or down with the elevator again. At least that’s how it worked when we visited.
So to answer your question: Yes, you can wait for your husband at the roof 🙂
Enjoy your trip to incredible Rome!
All the best, Cecilie.