The Vatikan state was created in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty and the Pope is the head of the Vatican State.

La Citta del Vaticano, the Vatican state, is a sovereign state with its own media and its own postal service. A tip is to save your postcards to the visit in the Vatican state and mail them from here because the postal service almost always is better here than in the rest of Italy.

When visiting the Vatican state (which one of course has to do when in Rome) it is important to do a bit of planning. There is so much to see and it is always so crowded. Best is not to try to see everything on just one day. Perhaps it is better to enter St. Peters Basilica one day and then return to Rome to study something else and be back the next day all rested to visit the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. The queues to the Vatican museum are extremely long and in the high season the queue starts as early as in middle of the night.

One should consider hiring a guide for the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. The profit of the visit will be so much greater. The guides are very competent and they have so many interesting things to tell about all the beautiful things to be seen inside the museum. If you stand in the queue someone will soon aproach you and ask if you want to pay for a guide. Wait for a guide that speaks your language. As soon as you have accepted a guide you can walk past the queue and very easily enter the Vatican museum to start a fantastic tour.