Monday Morning, August 31, 2oo9: The Vatican & St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Italy

Monday was our last half day in Rome before we headed out to the cruise ship. We got up early and headed over to the Vatican to pick up one of the first tours of the museums and St. Peter's Basilica. Everything is huge and grand. It was amazing. I just wish we'd had more than three and a half hours to tour all of this because we literally "flew" through everything. I'd love to spend more time and savor the beautiful relics.

This is the entrance for all the tours to head to the museums. It used to be the entrance and the exit until a few years ago. I can't imagine getting the thousands of people through this relatively small entry way in both directions!

Just a few facts: Vatican City is the smallest state in the world. It has it's own post office and zip code. It is surrounded by this wall. The museums hold some of the most cherished art in the world---Michelangelo's famous ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, his St. Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica, and the work of Raphael and others. St. Peter's Basilica has a small museum of the most extensive and expensive religious art and relics in the world. The Basilica is the largest church in the world too. It is enormous and is referred to as the "King Kong of churches" (at least by our tour guide).

Unfortunately, I was not able to take any pictures in the Sistine Chapel, the museum in St. Peter's, and some how I missed the original St. Pieta sculpture (not surprising, we were in a hurry since our time had run out.

We began our tour in this huge courtyard. It was only about 9am and was already in the high 80s.

Modern art among the old

All tours end in the Sistine Chapel---the crowning glory. Michelangelo was less than 30 years of age when he painted that ceiling and did not want to do it. It took him 4 years to complete. The most famous piece is the one block in the top right hand corner, where man is touching the finger of God. It took Michelangelo only 3 days to paint this whole scene. But anyway, we tour EVERYWHERE which leads to the Sistine Chapel which seems to a several mile journey.

More on Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel: Despite common belief, he did NOT lay on his back on scaffolding to paint this fresco. He actually ended up with his head and neck looking upward for the remainder of his life since he spent 12-16 hrs a day for 4 years in that position. He only painted the Sistine Chapel to earn the right to do what he truly loved: sculpting. The Pope "summoned" him to paint the chapel and they had come to some mutual agreements--that Michelangelo would never have to paint anything else and his work would focus on his sculptures. Unfortunately, that Pope died while the chapel was being painted and the new Pope had new requests and did not honor or accept the previous Pope's agreement. Michelangelo was angry and in one block of the ceiling, right over where the Pope would sit and reflect, he painted the large back end of the man in the scene. They say it was Michelangelo's way of getting even. Ha! Michelangelo's theme was the history of mankind before the coming of Christ and was painted from 1508-1512. Later on, between 1536 and 1541, he pained "The Last Judgement" which has a relief effect. It's amazing!

Well, a few years ago the ceiling was restored for 100 million dollars. The entire tab was picked up by a Japanese company that only had one request in return--that the copyright belong to them and the ceiling could no longer be photographed by the public. So, I have no pictures to post---although, I will sheepishly admit, I got a couple of pictures (flash off and my camera down at my waist while I walked around---shame on me).

This reading board was located out in that courtyard in multiple places so that you could read and learn. I never did get to read it, since our tour guide spent most of the time explaining everything.

Remember how I told you about the sculptures being pulled out of the coliseum and being put in the Vatican? Well, look closely, you'll see sculptures everywhere--here is one LOOOOOONG hall filled with them.

The mosiac floors were also beautiful! Hard to imagine that these have been walked on for hundreds of years!

And the ceilings were even more beautiful. There is something to look at everywhere--paintings, sculptures, tapestries, frescos, mosaics, etc, etc. It was truly visual overload--but it was all breathtakingly beautiful!

This room was filled with sculptures of Muses---they all represented a different art type---theatre, music, painting, sculpture.

This large basin is made of an extinct granite. It is a burgundy/purplish color and huge (note the people along the side of it). The quarry from which this granite was pulled was completely emptied and there has been no other granite like it ever found. The granite is worth some enormous amount of money ( I forget, but it was like a million dollars for a pound! yikes!)

Another beautiful original hand-done mosaic on the floor...

This sculpture has an uncommon feature--both characters have glass eyes that follow you. They are original to the work and are a little eerie. :-)

The tapestries are kept in a darker room and are HUGE!!! They are probably 30-40 ft by 20-30 ft. Most of them are several hundred years old and are still quite vivid in color. This picture does them no justice whatsoever.

Another ceiling. What is unusual about this ceiling is that it looks like there are relief characters coming out--actually there aren't, it just looks like there are! Wild huh?! Can you tell how enormous things are by the people below?

The work of Raphael and his students (if I recall correctly). Raphael was inspired by the work of Michelangelo.

Following this room we were lead into the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's work is breathtaking! Check!--another thing knocked off my "bucket" list. When you are in the chapel, silence is encouraged. There is an abundance of security to keep folks quiet, moving, and not taking pictures (the missed me. ;->). They seemed to be "Shushing" constantly! Once out of the chapel we went down a long stairway and corridor that lead to this outside area.

This door is for God, but the Pope does emerge from it every few years (sorry, can't remember the whole story). It's enormous, probably 20-25 feet tall. It's relief sculpturing in heavy metal. It's beautiful! It depicts the Life and ministry of Christ.

Look familiar? Yep, it's the famous square that can hold a hundred thousand people!

This is the balcony is where the Pope emerges to wave, address, and bless the people. Have you been noticing all the sculptures everywhere?

St. Peter's Basilica is amazing! It never ends. Unfortunately, we were only able to see a few things. It is HUGE (again, it's the largest church in the world and I remember someone saying that it would fit "so-many" cathedrals inside, but I don't remember the number. Let's just put it this way---it's MAMMOTH and there is no church or temple that I have seen that even comes close.

If you recall, I mentioned that the Basilica holds a museum of the largest collection of religious art. After I took the picture of this lifesize replica of the "La Pieta" by Michelangelo, I was asked to put my camera away--oops--I honestly missed that sign. Unfortunately, we missed seeing the original La Pieta in the Basilica. Guess, I need to go back. I've had a small sculpture of this work of art for years...it would have been fun to see the original...oh well...

Another wonderful one of those cold water spigots found throughout Rome...

This was the site where we were to pick up the shuttle to the hotel. Our ride to the port was coming at 2pm. We felt pretty good that we had plenty of time since the shuttle was to come at 1:20pm and would be back to the hotel about 15-20 minutes later. But when we didn't see our shuttle by 20 after we realized that it did not run during the lunch hour. This was when we both started running...we headed down to the subway so we could catch the connecting train about 2 or 3 stops away. Once we got to the train station we missed the train pulling out as we arrived (about 1:35 now) and the next was 15 minutes from arriving. We couldn't figure out how to buy the tickets. We finally found someone who could speak enough English to help us. She told us to go back to the subway and buy them at the news stand! So, we did and we ran like crazy to just get there when the train did! Once we got on, we caught our breath for the next run---from the station to our hotel--about a half mile run. We probably should both be dead from heart attacks but we got there around 2:10pm and our driver was waiting (whew!). We were both sweating, but grateful we hadn't missed our ride to the port where we'd get on the ship.

Next installment: Arriving to the port and boarding the ship!