Vatican & St. Peter's Basilica

Well we really conquered much more then just these two places. But they were the first stop of the day. Rome is a very walkable city and large well known monuments are 10-15 minute walk away from each other. That makes it very easy to be motivated to get from one place to the next. But the Vatican is on the complete opposite side of the city. We decided to save our legs, and headed for e metro around the corner and trained it. There is so much walking you gotta do yourself a favour when you can, even when you don't know you are.

The Vatican was a place we pre bought our tickets online a number of weeks ago. We are sure glad we did. We both remember standing in line with the school, stupid guide must not have got us tickets, and we didn't enjoy that. You only have so much why waste it on lines. 

 

We always seem to get in tour groups. I am not exaggerating we always find ourselves in the midst of large groups that are all clearly together, due to the matching head phone and guide around their neck. This is usually unfortunate except when it came to the Sistine chapel. Our host at the hostel was super knowledgable and told us there is a door in the corner that tour groups go through to get from Sistine chapel to the Basilica, but it is only for tours. He tells people who stay here, and he has for years, it is really easy to blend in with a tour group and follow them through. We did this, and it was great. Didn't have to wait at all to go into St. Peter's Basilica. We think our timing maybe we wouldn't of had to wait, but we didn't wanna risk it. Unusually you have to walk back through the whole Vatican, out and around to St. Peter's Square, where you get in another line, go through security again, before going into the basilica. 

 

Luke took one for the team a bit today. There is a dress code for the Sistine chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. For both guys and gals shoulders and knees need to be covered. Luke's shorts were borderline and we weren't about to get turned away so he wore pants, with a t-shirt and a collared shirt overtop. This was strategic so I could throw the collared shirt on and be acceptable. I wore leggings that covered my knees. This wasn't a big inconvenience especially because we were there during the major heat of the day, so we mainly he was warm but certainly not uncomfortable.

 

Anyways Vatican. It is quite a large place, but different then I remembered it being. After today I certainly feel I have seen it and wouldn't feel the need to rush back to specifically the Vatican, but to Rome in a heart beat. There are many different exhibits that we went in and a lot won't get mentioned. Many impressive paintings and sculptures, that all put in the same place are much less impressive then if you had went and seen just one on its own. It is fun to listen in on the tour groups as you run into the same ones majority of the time. 

 

One hallway in particular that I definitely remember from last time, a hallway that the ceiling is painted in 2D made to look 3D. With a few parts that are actually 3D. This was so cool and super mind blowing. We walked it a few times, I'll admit. There is also a door that is hard to explain but I shall try. Pictures will never do it justice, to any of this really. It is an arched entry way that you see the front part on the one side when you are facin it and the back on the other side. As you walk under it they switch. When you turn around to look at it from the other side it looks the same as it did from the other way. These were two of the three things I enjoyed the most.

 

The other was the mummy Egyptian part. Apparently the Romans at some point conquered a part of Egypt and took a few pillars from them. One in the centre of St. Peter's Square. I don't know why but the Egyptian exhibit here and in the Louvre really fascinated me. We say a mummified person. And read a description of how they do it. A process over 70 days. Crazy to think they did this for hundreds of years. 

 

We saw many neat thing at the Vatican. An interesting tid bit not all may know is that at one point a pope decided that having make genitalia exposed wasn't right. So he had someone go through all of the Vatican and slash off all the male peepees on the statues. Let me tell you there were many. I think there may have either been new additions since that pope or he spared a few weewees for some unknown reason. But there was a lot of work that would have gone into that.

 

Then the Sistine Chapel. Jam packed with people with a constant flow. You weren't allowed to take pictures but I snuck some in cause I could. Aren't great pictures but it gets the point across. Rick Steves had a guide of the Sistine Chapel which made it much more enjoyable. In the one corner it shows you the difference of how it looked before and after they restored it. Everything became more vibrant and lively once it was restored. There was preservation goop and dust and other things on top of it that made it so dark. It is quite the unique place. And of course in the centre of the ceiling you have God giving life to Adam. The famous pictures of the hands. Much smaller than I thought or remembered. But the whole thing is quite a large space that Michelangelo painted. That in itself is impressive. He also did it all standing up on scaffold leaning his head back and and painting the ceiling. It is the creation story on the ceiling. A neat depiction of it. You only get 2 very blurry pictures. Ther left one has the famous hands picture on it. In the right one you can see the dark dot that's the preservation an crud I was talking about.

 

From here we actually walked back to see the rest of Vatican. Apart of that was the popes carriages from over the years, and the pope mobiles. The cars are hilarious as the backseat is just one thrown. As is the case in carriages, except almost expected more in those then a car. We saw what more of Vatican we could then walked back through it all to sneak our way to St. Peter's Basilica. 

 

The Basilica is an incredible church. The sheer size of it is impressive. Rick Steves also had a tour of this which we did as well, and that was good. Made it all the more worth it to get extra information. There isn't much to say as it truly is a place that needs to be seen, words can't describe. I don't remember it exactly how it was. Going down the centre they have marking telling you where other. Churches in other cities would compare to the size of the Basilica. This one certainly wins. Peter the disciple of Jesus is said to be the first pope, and that he is buried under, way way under the alter. They say St. Peter but I didn't know if that was common knowledge. Anyways pictures don't do justice but here are a few. 

 

The outside of the church is deceiving to the inside of the church, maybe modest is the right word. The top left corner picture was actually taken from behind in the Vatican, the further away you get the more of the dome you can see from the front.

 

Then the square. Blocked off for services, or ready for services, and apparently the pope early Wednesday mornings rises into the square. Who knew. From the square you can see his bedroom window, and study window. It is very large, with many pillars and statues. An impressive square, crazy to imagine how full it gets on a Sunday, especially when the pope guest speaks. As well as when there and major events such as a choosing of the new pope. Also the centre pole, is the Egyptian thing they took. Rick said there are 4 others in the city.

 

From there we walked straight down the street, where we ran into Castel Sant Angelo. We didn't have a desire to go in, so we didn't. But still snapped a few pictures. As well a neat bridge that we crossed out front of it.

 

Then we meandered to the Piazza Navona. Underneath of it is the ruins of what used to stand there, a large stadium. Today you can go under and walk through them, or some of them, but on street level it is a lively place. People are happy cause there is shade, at least when we saw it, street entertainment, even caught Luke's eye as we were sitting by a fountain sharing a soda, until a while in it caught to many people eye and the crowd blocked his view. In this square what we think to be another one of the Egyptian poles. 

 

We enjoyed some shade for a bit before continuing our meandering. Specifically to an area across the river called Trastevere. We really liked this area. Truly authentic Rome neighbourhood. Apparently there are man older folks who don't cross the river and pride themselves on that fact. They will not cross the river and go into downtown Rome. Interesting tidbit. Also what was interesting is how narrow streets are, and how local of an area this is. The further into it you go the less touristy it becomes. Not wide open streets, but the small streets you think of when you think or Rome. Or at least I do. They can be see other places, but this was specifically a whole area of such unique authenticness. We enjoyed our dinner here and did a short walking tour around it. We would certainly have spent more time exploring this area.

 

This was when we were actually in the area. We were searching for a place to eat and as we strolled down a street being bombarded by multiple different people trying to get us into their restaurants I noticed all the corks on the ground. Imbedded into the cracks between the stones. Some looked as thought they had been there for a while and were truly just apart of the pavement. Others were more recent. I didn't stop in the main part of the street, to many people as well as we didn't want to eat there, so you get the idea by the picture but no really the longevity.

 

I must say the Vespa to smart car ratio here is very close. I would almost say 1:1 but then you turn a corner and BAM 7 Vespas parked in a row. But still standing in one spot and looking up the street just parked on the the street are at least 4 within your immediate view driving by you will see at least 3 and if you stretch you are bound to see many many more. 

 

That concluded our evening and we made our way back up to our place. Not an incredibly long hike but a decent way away. Even came across some bike thing that cars certainly didn't know about, but hundreds of people riding bikes through this one street, you can sort of see in the bottom left picture. The middle bottom right picture is my attempt at the colosseum at night. Cars were not happy especially cause they hadn't a clue what was going on. Saw from a distance the colosseum lit up with the moon so full sitting perfectly above it. Couldn't catch the photo though. Saw the forums slightly lit, and a number of other things. Thus bringing us back to our hostel. Now to get a good enough sleep to get us through a hot full of walking day tomorrow.

And so the adventure continues...