Beauty is a legitimate reason to go. The Church spent centuries and fortunes on it precisely because people are moved by it, and someone who comes to Rome for Michelangelo and Bernini is not a lesser pilgrim than someone who comes for a plenary indulgence. He may find that the Pietà is in a church for a reason.
Rome has the Sistine Chapel and the Raphael rooms, but it also has the fifth-century mosaics of St. Mary Major, the Cosmatesque floors of the medieval churches, Borromini's small miracles, and Caravaggio hanging in parish churches where you can see him for free. Assisi's Upper Church is the room where Western painting learned to tell a story. Santiago's Portico of Glory is the summit of Romanesque sculpture, and the cathedral it belongs to is reached, properly, on foot.
We build the days so that the great buildings are seen as what they are: not museums with a gift shop at the end, but places where Mass is being said while you look. If art is your reason, we give the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's separate days.
