"The crowds were annoying..."

Well both you and I, on our separate occasions, were of those crowds. Tourism has multiple downsides, but the people who show up to see the Vatican Museums and that famous ceiling are at least, on the whole, genuine aficionados, if just for a day, of culture. They've paid a lot of money and have sacrificed several hours to queue in the heat. They haven't just gone on Amazon to buy a picture book. They've travelled to Rome and they've showed up. It wasn't the crowds that annoyed me. It was the overbooking, the lack of information and the couldn't-care-less attitude of the authorities in charge of the place. The honest thing would be to restrict the numbers of tickets sold each day. But no, they are determined to make as much money as possible and they don't give a fig for the well-being, comfort and safety of the people whose hearts are at least in the right place, if nothing else.