Day 3 - I Went to See the Pope and All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Wrapping up our last day in Rome, and it's been another whirlwind day. Today we slept in until about 8am, then we slept in some more until about 9am. We were still groggy at 9, but figured we'd better get up if we wanted to see Vatican City.

So, we hit the Metro over to the west side of town to see Popetown. There were two big things we wanted to see - St. Peters Basilica, and the Vatican Museum. The Vatican makes it extremely hard to get any sort of reservation at the Museum (even though it's technically available), so instead of waiting we joined an English tour group led by a local American studying in Rome (I'm not sure what she studies - probably history or archaeology). It turned out to be totally worth it as she provided a lot of information and the Vatican Museum is huge on content and very minimal on explanatory info. It's almost like they grudgingly allow people to view their collection.

The Vatican Museum has an enormous collection of treasures -

all for the Pope's enjoyment

Once inside the Vatican Museum, our tour group went from room to room and we got various descriptions of the artifacts and statues. Most of it was very informative, our tour guide was very good. The museum was very crowded, moreso than anything else we've visited so far. It's rather remarkable that the collection was never intended to be a museum per se - it was solely for the appreciation and enjoyment of the Pope and clergy at Vatican City.

Some of the rooms had a theme - tapestries, busts, Egyptian artifacts, animals - the picture below is of the hall of Maps - a room over 125 meters long and the longest room in the Vatican (probably longest in Europe).

The Map Room - really, really long

The highlight of the Museum was, of course, the Sistine Chapel. We got an exhaustive overview of the paintings inside, the process by which Michelangelo painted the chapel (standing, not lying down as is commonly thought). Inside the Chapel there is no photography allowed - they don't even want people to talk. Naturally, lots of people took photos and talked, but we didn't want to be one of those people. Suffice to say that it's a pretty amazing room - nearly every surface is covered in a painting by some of the greatest Renaissance masters, and it's astonishing to see everything together and think about how long it took. The ceiling alone took Michelangelo 4 years to complete.

After the Chapel we left the Museum and went to St. Peter's Basilica next door. We ventured down into the Papal Tombs, where all of the more recent Popes are buried, including John Paul II. It also includes the Mausoleum of St. Peter. After the tomb, we went inside the church proper.

The exterior of St. Peter's Basilica, which is impressive...

...but the interior is even moreso.

St. Peter's Basilica is simply the largest, fanciest, most awe-inspiring church on the planet. Nothing else really even comes close. The interior space covers 6 acres, and is large enough for 95,000 worshippers to be inside at once. That's ginormous. The inside is covered in marble, and statues and paintings are everywhere, including Michelangelo's Pieta sculpture, which sits behind bulletproof glass. He completed this when he was only 24.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Also within the church is the spot where Charlemagne was coronated in 800AD, the spot where St. Peter was crucified (upside down) and a mosaic replica of Raphael's Transfiguration. Once again, words and pictures simply aren't adequate. It's dumbfounding to behold.

After leaving the Church we had a light pizza snack nearby and did a little souvenir shopping. We headed back to our room for a little rest, then had dinner at "Al Varesino", a local restaurant recommended by our hostess. The food was quite good, even though Jill thought she ordered scallops and instead got veal. The fresh strawberries and ice cream made up for the mistake.

So now we're headed to Cinque Terre tomorrow, assuming we can figure out the trains. We're not sure about the internet access while we're there, so the blog may go on hiatus for a day or two. We'll keep in touch by phone if we can.