On our second day in Rome we thought we’d visit the more religious sights…like Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica. As we walked down the river we came across a little market area and grabbed some dried fruits. Dave was the map-man and got us easily to where we needed to be! YEAH! We agreed to go to the museum first and end with the church. As we made our way around the basilica we saw a small post office and realized that it would be fun to send some postcards from the smallest country in the world! We bargained for a bunch of postcards and two pens…it was better if we both had a pen and it would go faster too. Then we waited FOREVER in the post office to send them!
After successfully sending our cards we were off to the museum. We rounded a corner and searched for the hours long line we were expecting. But where was it? Hmmm… We found an entrance and walked right in…found a line that said “Tickets”, purchased 2, and began our adventure – iPod in hand! There really wasn’t a line! We even found our about a little back-way to get from the Sistine Chapel to St. Peter’s without having to walk all the way around the museum again (plus it bypassed the metal detectors since we had already gone through them at the museum). The one thing we had to think about was should we actually purchase the audio-guide or just listen to our podcast. Since we wanted to use the shortcut we decided not to use the museum audio because we didn’t want to have to return them at the entrance! Plus, we were able to start at the end of the tour so we didn’t have to backtrack after the chapel. I’d say we played our cards right! We had SO much fun taking our time and exploring all the different types of art! There really is so much wonderful art there! And such different types! Dave and I had such fun discussing our likes and dislikes and taking all sorts of pictures.
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| Dave being scary! ;) |
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| Not a Kohler tub...we checked :( |
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| Here Kitty Kitty! |
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| Before the introduction of the fig leaf |
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| Creepy glass eyes!!! |
The time we arrived in the Sistine Chapel the guards really weren’t concerned with people taking photographs…but there must have been a guard shift change about ½ way through our visit because they became very loud and forceful repeating “NO PHOTOS” over and over again. It was kinda comical though…because the first guards had just told a few people to turn their flash off…I feel like they knew they couldn’t compete with the digital era. This time around (as I’d been there once before) Dave and I sat for about 30-40 minutes and listened to the audio describe the main paintings in detail…however my picture of the actual painting of the chapel was slightly ruined when I learned that he really didn’t lay on his back on scaffolding! Bummer. I thought that was SO cool…but if it really didn’t happen that way I’m a little sad now. I’m sure I’ll be alright though.
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I say...where it all began...
Dave says...pull my finger...
JUST KIDDING! :) |
When we got into the church there was a mass going on so we couldn’t make our way up to the alter right away so we listened to some of the background on the church. We viewed some of the sculptures and paintings. It’s magical! We both agree that from the exterior we both like the Duomo in Florence better with it’s white and green and pink marble…but the interior of St. Peter’s is just remarkable! We didn’t make it down into the crypt but we figured it was okay…we had to leave something to do next time!
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| It's like God was in there with us! Check out that sun!!! |
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| Being artistic! |
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| Funny guard! :) |
We ended up spending a lot of time in the Vatican and really enjoyed our visit. On the way out we saw this woman struggling with one of the guards/police men. She was spitting at him and biting his hand and staying things really loud in Italian. The other guards were trying to get us to move along (as I’m sure things like this happen all the time) but we just couldn’t move that fast. It’s not every day that you see a feisty old Italian woman spitting in public! I really wanted to know what she did to deserve that treatment (really, they weren’t being that mean…they were just trying to escort her somewhere else). But it must not have been that bad because we saw her a few minutes later at a souvenir shop on the street. Hmmm…some security!
We had a lovely dinner…pizza OR pasta…we can’t really remember…but we do know it WAS delicious!!!
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