Vatican and More

October 21, 2008
Rome, Italy

I spent the day on another full-day tour to Rome, which meant getting up at 6:30am (needless to say, this is NOT a good way to start the day when you are not a morning person. The ship docks in Civitavecchia, which is located north of Rome, so we had to take a bus into the city, and this granted me the opportunity to make up on some lost sleep.
After the bus ride from Civitavecchia to Rome, which lasted, more than an hour, we arrived just outside the entrance to the Vatican Museum. It was from here that we embarked on a walking tour through a small portion of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, and St. Peter’s Square that would end up lasting close to three and a half hours.

The Vatican Museum, I am sure, is quite spectacular, but we only walked through enough of it so that we could have quick access to a toilet and then get to the Sistine Chapel, but from what I saw out of its 11,000 rooms, I was greatly impressed. We were able to walk through a gallery that contained many small statues from ancient Rome, and one of the more interesting pieces I saw was actually a pair of urns, one made of onyx and the other made from alabaster. We proceeded through a hall filled with tapestries, and from there we walked through the Gallery of Maps, which was yet another long hall filled with old maps of different parts of Italian territories, both mainland and islands. Some of them even had the names of individual towns and mountains printed out, and all of them displayed the topography of different territories with immense details. I am unsure of when these maps were pained, but my best guess would be that they are at least four centuries old.

The Gallery of Maps was our last stop before we entered the Pope’s private chapel: the Sistine Chapel. Despite the fact that photography is prohibited, I turned the flash off on my camera and snapped away. The walls were beautiful, and obviously, the ceiling was breathtaking. This was the first time in my life seeing Michelangelo’s work first-hand, and it was quite a moment. I knew that the chapel’s ceiling is entirely his work, but I did not know that he painted one of the walls and it was amazing to see this added bonus. At the same time, I did not picture the chapel to be such a dark and creepy place. If I were in there alone and not surrounded by hundreds of other tourists, it would be a little scary despite the fact that I was surrounded by renaissance masterworks.

We walked from the Sistine Chapel to St. Peter’s Basilica, and I had no idea I was entering the world’s largest church. Massive is an understatement, and the sculptures, paintings, and mosaics inside were also amazing. The first sculpture the guide took us to view was Michelangelo’s Pieta, and many different works of art followed it. The highlights were obviously the Pieta, staring up from directly under the massive dome, and seeing the altar from which only the Pope will deliver mass.

We left the basilica and headed down to St. Peter’s Square, where chairs were set up for a public papal audience on Wednesday, and we had some free time for photographs. It was interesting to be standing in the middle of a sovereign nation and be able to see the entire country from there. I was able to see the papal apartment, and the basilica’s middle balcony from which the pope will sometimes address the public.

We left for lunch from the Vatican and went to lunch at a small place near the Tiber River, and after lunch, we headed to the Colosseum. Since I had already been here and been inside, I opted to walk around the area a bit and see what was there. I ventured towards the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, which houses many ancient Roman buildings, but since they were charging admission and I only had about forty minutes of free time, I decided it would be better to save this for my next trip to the city. I walked down a little further from the Colosseum before heading back, buying a book on Rome, and thought it would be a good time to do some reading about what I had seen and planning for my next visit.

All in all, I was excited that I was able to get to enter the Vatican City, but I feel the need to revisit the Vatican Museum and explore more of its collections. For my next trip, I am hoping to cover the Roman Forum/Palatine Hill, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps, and possibly the Pantheon as well. We return to Rome November 5 and 29, and I anticipate having about five or six hours in the city each time, so hopefully I will have the opportunity to see what I can. I will definitely return to Rome for a week or two at some point in the next few years to take it all in at once.

Tomorrow, I will be headed to Florence and also visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and on Thursday, our itinerary got modified due to bad weather. We were supposed to visit Marseilles, but instead, the ship will be going to Cannes, and I will be doing a morning tour to Nice, which I am looking forward to.