Once again, we woke up to a delicious breakfast prepared by Stefano. There were also other house guests on this day. I was not a big fan of them to be honest. They never said hello when you saw them and they tended to completely hog the bathroom. (We had to share with them.) Oh and they turned the hot water off (you turn it on and off in Europe) after they had been hogging the bathroom for two hours which led to me taking a painfully, FREEZING cold shower. I was not a happy camper. Stefano felt really bad about the cold water situation, so he in turn escorted us to the Vatican and explained bit and pieces of its history. The Vatican square was Enormous. The different areas were guarded by the Swiss Guards. There were also spots on the ground marked where you could stand to get perfect views of the buildings.
Marked spot on the ground. A lot of people don't know about these.
The view from that spot.
As mentioned previously, Rome was crowded this particular weekend. Now, I'm not sure if it was because most of Europe had off for winter break still or if this is what Rome considers "non tourist season." If it is the latter, I can't even begin to imagine the city in the Summer. To see St. Peter's Basilica, you had to wait in a line that went around the ENTIRE square. We're talking probably 1/2 a mile long. Luckily, the line moved quickly and the only reason it was formed was because you had to go through security/metal detectors before entering the basilica. Once inside, there was no crowd control. This made me somewhat cranky because you couldn't move once inside. It was basically like a herd of cows slowly moving throughout the space. It took away from the enjoyment and beauty of the church. I learned most of my history about the place from Wikipedia than actually inside.
FUN (Wikipedia) FACTS: It is believed that one of Jesus' 12 apostles, St. Peter, is buried here. Pope John Paul II is also buried here. There is an obelisk in the square as well that is one of the oldest ones known.
The really old obelisk.
Too many people!
One of the most famous statues of Mary and Jesus-- The Pieta
Studied this in College-- very cool to see this in person
Pope John Paul II
The Pieta
After the Basilica, Sara and I attempted to climb to the top of the church (the cupola). For this you had to actually wait in a line. While waiting in the line, there were a ton of warning signs about the amount of stairs which we found comical.
One of the many warning signs.
These people should try climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
To get to the top you had to first take an elevator. At this level, we had a nice view of the basilica below. As we approached the stairs to climb to the very top, we started to panic:
1. If you desire a visit to the Vatican Museum, you can either buy your ticket in advance or wait in the ridiculous line. We opted for the second option which involved us arriving at the scheduled time of 1:00pm
2. We were now waiting to climb to the top and it was 12:00pm
3. The stairs were so narrow that you had to climb single file.
4. When old people are climbing the stairs, you are stuck moving at the pace of a snail.
So, after staring at the line and realizing we can't walk back down the stairs if we changed our mind, we decided to completely skip it. So sad. Here are some photos from the part we did see...
Cool face mosaic
This ugly wonderful fence kept us from falling. Thanks Rome.
The only pretty thing to look at were these face mosaics.
What we were trying to climb the stairs to see....
...the only thing we ended up seeing.
We headed back down in the elevator, and found some Swiss guards at the bottom. We showed them some puppy dog eyes and explained our story. We followed one of them through secret passages in the Basilica back to the start of the line with all of the warning signs. The nice guard refunded our money, and we quickly power walked to the museum.
We casually hopped the line to the front, tickets in hand. The entrance itself was massive, and you needed a map to get to the museum exhibits. Sara and I first stopped to purchase audio tours and for coffee.
After coffee, we started our audio tour in the first exhibit which included all of ancient Egypt.
SIDENOTE: The Vatican Museum once housed the Popes. Popes from a very long time ago up until now, designed each exhibit within the museum. Therefore each room is EXTREMELY different and you can see the creative differences between each Pope.
An actual mummy.
The next exhibit was of statues from the Egyptian times...
And after that followed Greek statues. Then Roman copies of the Greek statues. And then after that some paintings and stuff. Blah blah blah. Fast forward to my ABSOLUTE favorite pieces of art and my now favorite room in the museum.... RAPHAEL'S PAINTINGS!
When I took a random art class in college, I became slightly obsessed with this artist. Well this time period in general. To me, this is the best art ever created. It has so much creativity, and skill, and secrets, I can go on and on. Andddd to make things better, the museum had my favorite painting... "The School of Athens":
All of the great philosophers, artists, thinkers in one place.
I spy Raphael. It is rumored that he painted himself into this painting.
While I have love affair with Raphael, I'm secretly cheating on him with Michelangelo. Shhhh don't tell. His Sistine Chapel took my breath away. It even made me do bad things.... I took illegal photos. Whoops. But now you get to see it too...
Look this guy was taking illegal photos too... so that makes it okay right?
After our four hour trip in the museum (we saw everything), we headed back to the B&B. We dropped off our things, and headed to the amazing restaurant from the first night. We decided we were going to eat as much food as possible to try the different things, so....
...we split a vegetable pizza and two separate pasta dishes; one was pasta with salmon and sauce and the other, Caci y Pepe. Oh and the best wine in the entire world too. Splitting things makes it healthier....
Because we felt particularly fat, we decided to go for a walk. We ended up back near the Trevi Fountain where we stopped for a drink in a restaurant that was very similiar to something in New York City. We each ordered fancy (delicious) drinks. After that we walked for around for another 30 minutes before meeting a local who directed us towards another popular bar. This place was so full, we were kind of isolated to sitting at the actual bar. But the bartender made us some amazing strawberry, fruit drink. So that was okay with us. After that, we headed back to the B&B to rest before our last day in Rome.
Part four to be continued....
More Vatican Photos:
The room of maps
This ceiling painting looked 3-dimensional
Another beautiful ceiling.
And another.
Needless to say between these painting and the Sistine Chapel, I had a rather stiff neck on this day.
Room of maps.
Picasso painting
And another cool ceiling.
...and another
Famous Vatican spiral stairs
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