Climbing St Peter's Dome

The most common question about St Peter’s Dome is whether the lift lets you skip the climb. It doesn’t, not entirely. It saves the first part, but the last section is on foot for everyone, and that is the hard bit. Once you know that, choosing a ticket takes about ten seconds.

Stairs or lift?

Walking all the way means 551 steps. The lift takes you to the level of the terraces and leaves you 320. Online, the difference is €5, with €17 for the stairs and €22 for the lift.

The steps the lift saves are the easy ones. The difficulty comes later, when the passage narrows and tilts, and the Fabbrica di San Pietro itself calls that final stretch very narrow and steeply sloping. I wouldn’t save €5 at the cost of arriving there already tired. From start to finish, allow about an hour.

On the terrace level you’ll find toilets, a shop selling religious items, a café and a post office. For the basilica’s 400th anniversary in 2026, those facilities are doubling from 100 to 200 square metres, and the Gregorian and Clementine domes and the terraces are due to open with multimedia displays. The booking site does not yet list a price or date for those new areas.

Booking online, and the blue and purple routes

The official online ticket covers the dome and St Peter’s Basilica with a digital audio guide, at a set time. Your confirmation email carries the QR codes and tells you which of two routes you’ve been given. You don’t choose; the system assigns it.

The Sobieski route, marked in blue, goes round the basilica first and finishes with the dome. The Lambertini route, in purple, does the dome first and the basilica afterwards.

A third ticket bundles everything. For €37 you get the basilica, the dome by lift and Pétros ení, the immersive show in the Octagonal Rooms, hidden inside a pier of the dome and never shown to the public before. It shares the climb’s opening hours, so it fits into the same morning, and it’s worth it if the exhibition genuinely appeals.

There are no refunds and no changes of date or name, so book once your day is fixed. If the website is sold out, try the ticket desks on the day at the desk in the portico, the tills in the Cortilone shop, or those in the Treasury Museum shop, which only sell the stairs option. The official site doesn’t publish the desk price, and the figures quoted on blogs don’t agree with each other. To compare this with the other Vatican tickets, see my guide to Vatican tickets.

Who should give the climb a miss

The Fabbrica advises against the climb for anyone with heart or breathing problems, vertigo, claustrophobia or limited mobility, and for pregnant women. That warning is worth heeding. The routes up and down are separate and both one-way, so once you are in the last section there is no easy way to turn back.

Even with the lift, the dome is only partially accessible, because the final part is always on foot. Large rucksacks and suitcases are not allowed, there is no left-luggage, and animals cannot go up. The dress code is the same as for the basilica, with shoulders and knees covered.

If the climb is ruled out, the basilica below is still fully open to you. It is free, with step-free access by ramp and lift.

When is the best time to climb?

Until 25 October 2026 the dome opens from 7am to 6pm. Last winter it opened from 7.30am to 5pm, and the hours for winter 2026-2027 have not been published yet. It opens on Sundays and public holidays, though papal ceremonies can close it at short notice, and it never opens at night.

Your ticket carries a set time, so build the rest of the morning around it. On the Lambertini route you start with the climb, which suits an early slot; on the Sobieski route you see the basilica first and climb afterwards.

I would go up in the first hour. The stairs are where crowds really make a difference, and the basilica is calmer afterwards. I’d steer clear of Wednesday and Sunday mornings, the busiest times across the whole site because of the papal audience and the Angelus. From the top you look straight down on St Peter’s Square, Bernini’s colonnade and Via della Conciliazione beyond.

Michelangelo’s design and a 22-month vault

Michelangelo designed the dome, took charge of the work in 1547 and built it up to the drum. Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana finished it between 1588 and 1590, closing the vault in 22 months with 800 men on site. The ball and cross on the lantern, by Sebastiano Torrigiani, went up on 18 November 1593.

Inside, the mosaics cover roughly 3,000 square metres in 16 sections and were made between 1598 and 1613 under Marcello Provenzale.

The official site gives two heights. Its FAQ says 136.57 metres from the base to the top of the cross, while its history page says more than 133 metres. I use the first, as it is the Fabbrica’s direct answer to the question. And if you’d like to see the opposite end of the building, far below the floor of the nave, the Vatican necropolis is open by booked tour only.