The Vatican

One of the many places we wanted to visit on the trip was the Vatican. When we were in Roma we made a couple of trips to visit the Vatican to see the museum, the Sistine Chapel and the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica. Travelling downtown Rome for us is a bit of a journey. First we take a local bus to the Ostia train station, catch a train into a station in Rome that has a subway attached, hop on the ‘B’ line for a couple of stops, then onto the ‘A’ line hopping off at the St. Peter’s stop. 

All in about an hour and a half. So we’d leave Tara around 9:30 and arrive downtown between 11 and 12. As we’ve said many times before, this army travels on its stomach so we needed to grab a bite. If you eat on the main drag you get the places with 15 euro pizzas and 5 euro cokes, a couple of blocks away you’re back to the 7 Euro pizzas and 1.5 Euro drinks, so it pays to walk a couple of blocks that’s for sure.

We made reservations to go to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel to avoid long lineups. The lineups were to pick up our reservation tickets, there were no lineups to just buy the tickets – another 20 Euros wasted ... oh well.

To say the Vatican Museum is awesome is an understatement. While nobody knows what the rest of the world was doing in the dark ages, clearly the Catholic Popes were collecting priceless antiquities from around the world. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, all cultures were represented and the pieces were spectacular. What truly gets me thinking is that most museums only display 10% of their collection, so imagine what the overall collection must be.

The real David... (actually in Florence ... testing to see if you're awake)

The crowning glory of the Museum tour is a trip through the Sistine Chapel that was restored to its glory about 10 years ago when the frescoes were cleaned and now are much easier to see. 

The Sistine Chapel requires long pants...what fun for Ross!
Yes, we had to go shopping. 

Marina and I listened to the Rick Steves ITunes download and really got a bunch more out of seeing the ceiling and the final piece Michaelangelo painted on the wall of the alter. Which we were unable to get any good pictures of as you are not allowed to take photos in there. We tried and have a few but they are not well positioned and grainy as we tried to not look like we were taking pictures. 

Not from the Sistine Chapel...but beautiful none-the-less. 

While we were there the previous pope Giovanni Paulo II was beatified – the third of four steps required to become a saint. Apparently the miracle he performed was ridding a woman of Parkinsons – which is somewhat ironic as he died from complications from Parkinsons. As a Concierge said at the Hilton, all of Poland was in Rome. There were hundreds of buses, tens of thousands of pilgrims carrying flags and posters, and all sorts of people ready to camp out in St. Peter’s Square.

A couple of days later Granny met us downtown and we went to St Peter’s Basilica. After a 15 minute lineup to go through metal detectors, we made it inside the church. Wow, wow, wow and more wow. What an incredible place. Again we used a Rick Steves podcast and we marvelled at the Bernini alter and the many sculptures by great Renaissance masters, and of course the Cupola designed by Michaelangelo. We saw the bodies of Pope John the Good and peered down into the basement area where St. Peter is said to be buried. 

The scale and size of the church is overwhelming, apparently 60,000 people can fit inside, then add a couple hundred thousand on the plaza ... it’s mind-bendingly big. 

Large scale mosaic...

Bottom right corner of the mosaic....

One thing that was really cool is that all the “paintings” in the church are actually mosaics that are painstakingly made from small chips of tile or stone. 

Left shoulder enhanced to see tile pieces.

This way they can be cleaned regularly as the smoke from the candles and incense would have made paintings black over the centuries.

Artwork from in the Museum....hmmmm....

By the time we left St. Peter’s the kids and Granny had had enough, so we did a pass on climbing the rotunda where the view is said to be fantastic. The way we figure it, you want to leave something for the next time you go.