There's some open space around the museum as well, where you can take in bits of the rest of Vatican City. However, if you're interested in mingling with the cardinals, you'd have to get through some pretty tough security. There's a big central courtyard, which is a great place to break your visit. You can also admire the great dome of St. Peter's cathedral, the only other publicly accessible part of this golf course-sized country. Somewhat obnoxiously, the powers that be arranged that, despite the insignificant size of the country, visitors would have to walk almost a mile from the museum exit to the cathedral entrance. After five hours at the museum, we needed a lunch break along our trek to the cathedral.

The collection is organized into twelve museums, each displayed in beautiful surroundings. Unhelpfully the popes have assembled probably the world's best sculpture collection, but have "improved" on the originals by putting plaster leaves over the statues' genitalia. It's quite a sensory overload, since the rooms housing the collections are usually painted by world famous painters themselves. This includes, of course, the aforementioned Sistine Chapel, pictured here in very unfamiliar circumstances, i.e. empty. The chapel is where the cardinals meet and elect the new pope, and is considered a very sacred room. If you listen carefully you can just about hear the guards yelling at everyone to shut up and obey the "Silence!" signs posted all over the place, although usually they are drowned out by the droning monologue of the tour guides.

The museum is the largest in the world, with two miles of corridors to walk through. It's housed in several former papal palaces now joined into one sprawling, but very well organized, museum. Through the centuries the popes assembled an amazing collection of just about everything, and it's all displayed here for those with the stamina to take it all in. The rooms and corridors between the entrance and the Sistine Chapel, such as these in the pictures, are heaving with visitors. The great majority of visitors are really only interested in the Sistine Chapel, and the museum helpfully marks out a shortcut path to get you in and out of the whole complex in twenty minutes.