There has been an uproar in Athens this week, with reports that Greece’s culture ministry plans to introduce private out-of-hours visits to the Acropolis and Parthenon. The news provoked an outraged response from those who view such arrangements as deeply elitist and unfair.
The proposed tours, which would cost €5,000 for a group of five, would allow tourists to be guided around one of the world’s most famous historic sites for two hours before and after normal opening hours. The motive is, of course, money. The Hellenic Organization for the Development of Cultural Resources (which is affiliated with the Greek Ministry of Culture) believes such an initiative could raise up to €40,000 per day to help develop and protect cultural sites.
Such a plan may be new to Athens, but the wider world of cultural tourism has long functioned this way. If you have the budget, a discreet request will usually open the doors after or before business hours, allowing you to enjoy the most famous art, sights and attractions without having to deal with hi polloi.
However, such eye-watering price tags are not the whole story. While the number of tourists are desperate for a glimpse of the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling returns to post-pandemic levels, so the number of options to avoid this increases. Some museums – such as the Uffizi in Florence and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris – have reservation systems so you can avoid the worst queues. But there are also some more expensive ways to improve your experience.
Sistine Chapel, Rome
Sometimes I wonder what Michelangelo would have thought of the modern experience of seeing his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. His spectacular meditations on creation and the Last Judgment were made for a rarefied atmosphere: the Pope’s inner sanctum, his private chapel. Of course it is still his private chapel, but such is the weight of the numbers who now pour into it during visiting hours that the experience is less of a profound aesthetic or religious experience and more like entering and exiting a football stadium. The Vatican Museums do their best to distribute the flow evenly; access to the chapel is at the end of the visitor route. But it is not a visit for the faint-hearted art lover, and you would do well to plan a visit in December or January.
What a visit usually costs: A €20 ticket gives access to the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.
For the privileged few: Walks of Italy (walksofitaly.com) offers an alternative, if you’re willing to get up early. The special access tour (group size up to 20 people) starts at 6:00 AM and gives you two hours to explore the museums, Raphael Rooms, and Sistine Chapel before it opens to the public. It costs from £446 per person.
Basilica of San Marco, Venice
Another sacred space, this one was also originally created as a private chapel for the Venetian Doge, St. Mark’s Basilica, and in my opinion is even more compromised by the crowds. It should be the most amazing experience. The thousand-year-old golden mosaics on the walls and domes have a light and life of their own, especially towards the end of the day when the setting sun streams in and they flicker and glow like embers. But to enjoy it, you normally have to join the long line that stretches all the way to St. Mark’s Square. Security checks and basic crowd control mean numbers need to be managed. In practice, the queue is endless. It moves slowly through the church as you follow the visitor route.
What a visit usually costs: For just €3 you can visit St. Mark’s Basilica. Children go free.
For the privileged few: Viator (viator.com) – a specialist in tours and experiences around the world – organizes small-group tours (limited to 25 people) after the church is closed to the general public. They include entry to the main sights in the nave and crypt and last approximately an hour and a half. They cost from £68.20 per person depending on the date, although the price can rise to over £300 if you include an optional out-of-hours visit to the Doge’s Palace at the same time.
Palace of Versailles
The Baroque pleasure palace of Louis Add to that the Royal Opera, Marie Antoinette’s model village, hectare upon hectare of parks and formal gardens and – on summer weekends – spectacular fireworks and fountain shows. It could take a dedicated visitor days to see everything. But most don’t. They want the highlights: the Hall of Mirrors, the King’s Apartments and Marie-Antoinette’s Private Apartments. So once the coaches arrive and the gates swing open, the result, to put it bluntly, is often a scrum.
What a visit usually costs: A ticket for just the palace costs €21, while entry to the entire site costs €32.
For the privileged few: One of my best assignments ever was a stay at the Le Grand Controle hotel (airelles.com). This was the former state treasurer’s country house, which was built just inside the walls of the park surrounding the castle. It has just 14 luxurious bedrooms, a fantastic restaurant and an atmosphere of history and fun. But its real USP is the privileges it offers its guests. You have direct access to the grounds at all times, and the hotel supplements this with daily tours of the palace outside office hours, which are included in the room rate. So when you enter the Hall of Mirrors, the only reflection you see is your own. Double rooms from around €2,000 including breakfast and tea.
The British Museum
Despite a rocky ride recently with the missing artefacts scandal, the British Museum has recovered from the pandemic more successfully than any other major museum in London, with visitor numbers up 42 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022, down just a few per cent than the previous one. his record. This means that many people (almost six million per year) have to rush through security checks. It’s a big place of course and once you get there you can easily find the quieter corners and galleries. But the pressure on the Elgin Marbles, the Egyptian mummies and the Rosetta Stone can be intense at peak times.
What a visit usually costs: A visit to the permanent collections is free.
For the privileged few: The good news is that the museum has one of the most affordable programs for after-hours visits. It offers a choice of five different highlights tours, led by volunteer guides. They start at 8:50 AM, which allows about an hour in the museum before the 10:00 AM opening time. They include a general introductory tour and others focusing on China, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, and each tour costs £33 per person (britishmuseum.org/visit/out-hours-tours).
Luxor Temple
The sites around Luxor are certainly busy, especially some of the underground tombs. Seeing Tutankhamun can mean waiting a long time for a very brief glimpse into the interior. But often it is both the scorching heat of the Egyptian desert and the crowds that make visits so exciting. Two of the most popular visits, besides the Valley of the Kings, are the Karnak Temple complex and Luxor Temple, which was partly built by Ramses II and Tutankhamun and, the theory goes, was the place where the pharaohs were crowned.
What a visit usually costs: Tourists pay 400 EGP (£6.63) to enter the Luxor Temple.
For the privileged few: If you’re feeling particularly flush and prefer the idea of visiting Karnak or Luxor Temple during the relative cool of the evening, Egypt Vacation Tours (egyptvacationtours.com) can arrange after-hours access to the sites with an expert guide. Not only that, but if you want to enjoy the experience longer, you can dine at the Luxor Temple. A visit to Karnak costs from US$510, while dinner at Luxor Temple costs from US$1,950. Both prices are per person based on a group of 9-17 adults.
The Last Supper, Milan
Leonardos Last Supper is, along with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, one of the most famous large-scale paintings ever created. But due to its fragility and the relatively small size of the space for which it was created, it cannot accommodate as many visitors as the chapel in Rome. To see it you normally have to book weeks in advance, even though you only get 15 minutes in the room, along with up to 29 other people. The result is that many who show up without planning far enough in advance don’t see it.
What a visit usually costs: A standard ticket to the Last Supper costs €15.
For the privileged few: The answer is to buy your way in and Tick Italy (tickitaly.com) has the solution. It says it liaises with local licensed guides who offer visits to explore the Last Supper as part of a larger tour and so it is often possible to add additional visitors to the group to take up unused places. To get in at short notice, you pay more than double the regular ticket price – from € 36.50 – and you still only have 15 minutes. But at least you’ll see it.