Almost nobody touring the Vatican Museums for the Sistine Chapel ever sees a single carriage, a single popemobile, or the car connected to the 1981 shooting of John Paul II, because none of it sits anywhere near the main route. The Padiglione delle Carrozze, the Carriage Pavilion, is a separate underground room built into a garden courtyard within the museum complex. Reaching it takes a deliberate choice rather than a lucky glance sideways. Here is what is actually inside, how to find the entrance, and who should honestly leave it off the list.
What’s Actually Inside the Padiglione delle Carrozze
The centrepiece is the Grand Gala Berlin, built in Rome in 1826 and still the pavilion’s most photographed object. Around it sit a Berlin belonging to Cardinal Luciano Bonaparte, a second Gala Berlin fitted with a throne, travelling carriages including one that belonged to Ferdinand II, a Landau, and the sedan chairs once used by Leo XIII and John XXIII.
Motorised vehicles make up the other half: a Graham Paige Type 837, a Citroën Lictoria C6, a Mercedes-Benz 460 Nürburg, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL, a Fiat 1107 Nuova Campagnola, a Volkswagen Beetle, a Renault 4, and an odd inclusion visitors always ask about, a Ferrari Formula 1 steering wheel, model MT 867/B. Popemobiles from several decades round out the display. Official wording for the motoring collection is plain enough to quote directly: “The Vatican Museums’ ‘fleet’ of automobiles also includes the Mercedes 300 Sel, the Fiat Campagnola linked to the assassination attempt against John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in 1981.”
The Car Linked to the 1981 Attack on John Paul II
That Fiat Campagnola is the reason many visitors seek this room out specifically. It is the open-topped vehicle John Paul II was riding in St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, the day Mehmet Ali Ağca opened fire and hit him twice. Its official description confirms the identification directly: the Fiat 1107 Nuova Campagnola on display is the car “on which Pope John Paul II was hit by two shots in the attack on his person of 1981,” a phrase echoed almost word for word by the independent guide site romanmuseums.com. Standing in front of it lands differently than reading about the event ever could. It is a plain white utility jeep, unarmoured, exactly the sort of open car the Vatican stopped using in daily papal appearances after that afternoon.
Popemobiles, Old and New
The pavilion’s popemobiles span several pontificates, and romanmuseums.com’s plain summary of their purpose still holds: they are “papamobili that allow the pope to be seen and to be able to greet the crowd in short trips from one place to another.” The vehicle the current pope actually rides isn’t part of this historical line-up. Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, was elected on 8 May 2025 as the 267th pope; the Vatican’s own biography records the milestone with characteristic brevity as “Beginning Pontificate 8,18.V.2025.” Whatever he currently rides in belongs to daily papal logistics, not to a museum case.
How to Actually Find It
A lot of online advice gets vague here, so it’s worth being precise about what could and couldn’t be verified. No official confirmation exists of a dedicated shuttle bus to the Carriage Pavilion, despite that being a common assumption. A separate, paid Vatican Gardens open-bus tour does exist, roughly forty-five minutes with a multilingual audioguide, but nothing ties that bus route to this room, so don’t book the gardens tour expecting it to drop you at the carriages. Foot access is the only description that could actually be verified, from the independent visitor guide site italy-sights.info: “The Pope’s carriage pavilion can be reached by walking to the right from the entrance and going down a staircase to the basement in the accessible part of the museum garden.” Same source calls it “somewhat hidden in the huge museum complex,” and less crowded than the rest of the Museums as a result. Treat this as a walking detour near the start of your visit, not a mid-tour stop reachable by transport.
How Much Extra Time and Walking It Costs
No exact minute count for the detour could be confirmed, and any figure you see quoted online without a source should be treated with suspicion. What can be said with confidence is smaller and more useful: the pavilion is a single room, not a wing, so once you’re standing in it the visit itself is quick. Most visitors move through in under fifteen minutes unless carriages or classic cars genuinely hold their attention. Walking there and back, plus the staircase down and up, is the real cost, not time spent looking. Budget half an hour for the round trip if you want a comfortable margin rather than a rushed one.
Tickets and Whether You Need a Separate One
The official pricing page was unreachable at time of writing, so treat this as secondary-source consensus rather than a confirmed figure. Multiple independent ticket and guide sites converge on roughly €20 at the door and €25 online including a booking fee, the same range as standard Vatican Museums admission, and those same sources describe the Carriage Pavilion as included with no extra charge. That inclusion couldn’t be verified on an official page, so if a separate line item appears at the entrance, don’t assume it’s an error; just confirm before queueing for anything extra.
Who Should Skip It
Skip it if your time is tight and the Sistine Chapel is the only real priority, or if you’re travelling with young children who won’t sit still for parked vehicles behind rope barriers. Go if you or anyone in your group has a genuine interest in classic cars, in the mechanics of papal transport, or in the specific history of the 1981 attack; standing in front of that Fiat carries more weight than any photograph of it. Go, too, if the main galleries have left you tired of paintings and you’d rather spend twenty quiet minutes somewhere the crowds haven’t found.
Hours, Closures, and When to Go
The Vatican Museums open Monday to Saturday “08.00 a.m. – 08.00 p.m.,” with last entry at 18:00, so the Carriage Pavilion keeps the same window as everything else in the complex. On the last Sunday of most months the Museums open free of charge, but only from “09.00 a.m. – 02.00 p.m.,” with last entry at 12:30; that morning is also the single most crowded slot of the month, so it suits a determined early riser more than someone hoping for a quiet look at the carriages. Ordinary Sundays are closed too, along with a fixed list of dates each year, including 14 and 15 August, so check the calendar before building a mid-August itinerary around this room. Per the official Vatican Museums page, the pavilion itself was “inaugurated on 19 April 1973 by Paul VI,” which makes 2026 its fifty-third year on display.
Is the Vatican Carriage Pavilion worth visiting for every itinerary? No. Is it worth the walk for anyone with an afternoon to spare and a soft spot for old machines and papal history? Almost certainly. If you’d rather have a guide who already knows the staircase and can fold the detour into a tighter overall route, our Vatican tours page lists the guided options that can plan that kind of stop around your schedule.