Country High Point #9 – Vatican City – Vatican Hill (72m)

Updated September 8, 2025
Posted in Country High Points
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The highest point of Vatican City was the second high point on this triple header trip.

This is officially the smallest country in the world, with a population of around 800 people, it’s located entirely inside the city of Rome.

It has it’s own government, police, hospital, school and even a train station yet it’s only just over 100 acres in size.

To access this country high point, you have to be on a guided tour as Vatican Hill is within the Vatican Gardens which can only be accessed via said tour.

It was worth it though as it included the museums and also the Sistine Chapel, which you need to go and see once in your life, I’m not a massive fan of galleries and museums, but defo get that on your list.

A heads up too, you need to make sure you book these tickets months in advance, maybe more in the summer, you can find tickets here: https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/organizza-visita/scegli-la-visita.html

Another strange high point as it’s part of the paved gardens but is still a natural high point as this is obviously built onto it, there is also a debate out on whether the grounds of Papal Palace in Castel Gandolfo (about 25km from Rome) is the highest point of Vatican City, as they own the land around that area and in theory is the same as including an overseas territory as part of that country.

A little technicality there, maybe at some point I’ll just have to go back and make sure I tick off that ‘high point’ too.

Hiking Data

Start:

Entrance to the Museum Tours

Difficulty:

1/5

Distance:

2-3km

GPX File:

N/A

Summit:

Vatican Hill (72m)

Date:

29-11-2024

Ascent:

10-30m

Time:

2.5 hours

Weather:

Sun & clouds

What 3 Words:

Route Overview

After landing in Rome the night before, I had to nab a taxi, the fecking trains were out of service so a nice extra 50 euros spent there otherwise I was stranded for hours, the replacement bus queues were round the corner, swerve that.

I was up nice and early and did some site seeing on the way to my 9:30 tour, passing the Coloseum and Piazza Venezia.

I joined the tour which was very informative, but at the same time I was trying to make sure I wouldn’t miss the high point, I had looked online before and saw a few pictures of where it was so it was a great relief when the tour passed that way with a great view of St Peters Basilica Dome in the background.

You do end up walking a good few kms on this tour and the gardens are immaculate, the tour then finishes with a walk through some of the galleries and finally you can enter the Sistine Chapel where I spent about 20 minutes chilling before heading off to get my train and a long day of travelling to the next high point in San Marino.