Traveling With Amy: Day 9: Italy: Vatican City

(As in the previous post, you can find lots more photos at the bottom of the page.)

We started off the day with the complimentary breakfast from the hotel. Now, I know most of you have stayed in a hotel. Most of you have had the "breakfast" that is provided by the hotel. It probably wasn't this. OK, I'm pretty easygoing when it comes to breakfast (cereal is generally enough for me), but anyone who has scrambled eggs this good is fine by me. That's not even mentioning the cakes, fresh fruit, bread, and jam from France. Little tiny jars of jam from France. Generally, I had a nice large helping of eggs, a banana, some bread with jam, and coffee. I think the fact that they served more than cereal helped a lot in keeping my stamina up for the sheer amount of walking that we did.

We took the A metro to Vatican City in the morning. Vatican City, as most of you know, is an independent city-state inside Rome itself. We entered into Saint Peter's Square, which has another obelisk, a fountain that was under restoration, and the entrance to Saint Paul's Basilica. We took some pictures of the square for a bit, then got into the really long line to get into the church itself.

Turns out the line was for the security checks. We had to run our bags through an airport-type scanner. As none of us had brought weapons or spray paint, we were all allowed to pass with no trouble. Once we got inside the security area, the crowd dispersed a bit and it was a little easier to move around.

St. Peter's Basilica is the largest church in the world. It was built in the late Renaissance period and attracts millions of visitors every year. Even the entryway is bigger than some churches I've been in. As you can see in the picture of the front, it dwarfs anyone that stands in front of it. The interior is just as impressive, but more on that later.

Interior of Dome

We started our visit by deciding to go up to the top of the dome to look out over the city. There were a total of over 500 steps, but there was also the option to skip part of them to go directly to the roof of the building. We took that option, then began to climb the stairs into the dome itself. That meant there were still approx. 320 stairs to take. Unlike the stairs to the top of the Kölner Dom, these stairs had landings every so often. Which is very good, because we had to stop several times. It was also only one way, so once we started, we had to go all the way up to the top. We eventually made it, though, and had a great view of the city around us. The only downside was that there were a lot of people up there with us, so naturally everyone had to wait their turn to get their picturesque photos.

You can see all of Vatican City from the top, including the Papal Gardens and the Vatican Museum.

St. Peter's Square

After descending the same amount of stairs (which went much easier) and then the elevator, we came out into the interior of the basilica. I'm still not sure how to describe the sheer size of this thing. There is the main part that is enormous, but then on all sides there are priceless paintings, statues, and tombs of popes that are so rich in detail that it's overwhelming. I know I didn't absorb even half of what there is to see there, and I certainly didn't get the entire thing in pictures either. I can see why Charel says that he finds something new every time he returns there. There was also hundreds of people inside, if not a couple thousand.

As it was the morning, it wasn't extremely well-lit, either. I tried my best but some of my pictures just didn't come out very well. It's also so huge in there that I would have had to take a thousand pictures just to document it all. We did walk around quite a bit of it, however, and now that I've had time to absorb some of it, next time I should enjoy it even more.

After the tour of the basilica, it was time for lunch. Not sure why, but we only wanted ice cream at the time. We went to a place that was just outside the Vatican City's walls. It had begun to rain when we left, and all of a sudden every single peddler had ponchos and umbrellas. They must have a good supply stashed somewhere because they were instantly everywhere. I saw a lot of people buying the gaudy plastic ponchos too. I guess it pays to be prepared. Mom had her umbrella for the sun, so she was prepared for the rain, too. The rest of us just toughed it out, as it wasn't raining all that heavily. It did mean that every peddler on our path asked us if we wanted something. I began to think that I just needed a sign that says "NO" on it so I could hold it up and not waste my breath.

After "lunch", we decided to go back into Vatican City to tour the Vatican Museum. It's good that we bought our tickets in advance, because the line to enter was wrapped around the entire building. It was even longer when we left. There already were hundreds of people in the lobby, not even counting the amount that were already touring the place. It felt nice to go to the front of the line and pick up our tickets right away. Mom wasn't feeling well at this point, so she sat down outside while we went around. We discussed her returning to the hotel, which is what she eventually did. So we were a trio when we went inside the museum.

It started with a display of Egyptian artifacts. There were sarcophagi, grave items, even a couple of mummies. I'm not sure it was on purpose or not, but it was hot and humid in those rooms, not helped by the throngs of people that were everywhere. I also didn't get very many pictures because my camera battery was dying, and I was getting tired, too. Dick took way more pictures than I did.

After the Egypt display we began to go through the impressive collection of statues, pillars, artwork, and pretty much everything else the Vatican has collected over the years. Again, the artists made use of the entire room, putting lots of stuff on the ceilings. As with the basilicas, it was way too much input to process all at once. If I wanted to view everything thoroughly it would probably take me the entire day with just the part that we did go through. Out of everything I viewed, the long map room was probably my favorite. Just because of the ceiling, though the maps were really impressive too.

About halfway through we arrived in the Sistine Chapel. The problem is, we weren't allowed to take pictures, and they shuffled us in and out so fast that we barely had time to look at stuff anyway. I was exhausted by this point, so I looked around a bit and then decided to split off from Dick and Charel and walk through the rest of the place quickly. I did find a scale model of the St. Peter's Basilica which I took a couple of quick pictures of. I sat down and waited and drank some water, which was good.

After the museum we returned to the hotel to check on Mom and rest a little. I decided to stay in the hotel until supper to recover and rest. Dick and Charel went to go see more churches in the meantime.

Supper was at a small little place that Charel had been to before. I ordered a calzone this time, which was much easier to cut. I was very hungry and ate a lot of food. Helps that all of it was delicious. After supper we returned to the hotel yet again to rest and try to recover for the next day.

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