05-02-2024: The Vatican

We awakened to a dismal, rainy morning. Our plan to walk to the Vatican was certainly out the window. During the morning, the rain was so hard that we could barely see across the street from our hotel window. So we had a leisurely breakfast and then stayed in the room for most of the morning. The rain did subside just as we were preparing to leave the hotel. Our tickets for the Vatican were for a small group tour starting at 12:30. At 11:15, we ordered a taxi and off we went.

Riding in a taxi around Rome is quite an experience. Our driver was expert at weaving in and out and making sharp turns into tiny little alleys and speeding up and down winding, hilly roads. As you might recall, Rome is built on and around 7 hills so you spend a lot of time either going uphill or downhill. As we got closer to the Vatican, the traffic was really heavy. We arrived near the entrance to the Vatican museums along with about 5,000 other people. The line to get in was incredible.

We located where we were to meet up with our tour group, and then explored the neighborhood a bit. We stumbled across Mercato Trionfale, one of the big markets in Italy. I love these kinds of markets where you can get anything you need. There are 273 stalls in this market and the smells and visuals are incredibly wonderful.

We met up with our tour group of 9 people and struck up a conversation with a mother/daughter from Texas. The mother had been a flight attendant for 30 years and the daughter is a pilot. They certainly are an airline family as the husband/father was also a pilot. Christine enjoyed talking with the daughter about flight simulators and the work she had done programming simulators.

Then off we went to stand in line for the entrance to the museum. Our tour guide, Oxanna, a young art student, was really good. We wore little radio receivers and ear buds to be able to hear her. She was very knowledgeable and peppered her talk with great humor, which helped to be able to take in all the information that poured out of her. The place was extremely crowded. Oxanna said that because yesterday was a holiday, that typically the day after a holiday is unusually crowded. It was uncomfortably so in some areas of the museum.

Once through check-in and security, we got to an outdoor area where we received a 10-minute overview of some of the highlights of the tour, the history of the museums and a primer on the Sistine Chapel. The reason Oxanna talked about the Sistine Chapel here was because there’s no talking in the chapel, certainly not by tour guides. From this location, we got a good view of the dome of St. Peter’s.

As we were walking towards the entrance to the museum, we passed through a large courtyard. The Vatican library was at one end. There was a golden sphere in the center of the courtyard. And what I did not expect to see was a bistro in the Vatican, but there it was on the left in this photo.

Then it was in to the museum with all the other thousands of people. The hallways are very narrow and so moving from one important gallery to the next is pretty awful. Our guide did her best to navigate to small little areas out of the crowd so she could direct our attention to particular works of art.

We entered the Octagonal Courtyard, what Oxanna said was one of the nicest courtyards in the Vatican. There were alcoves all around the courtyard where statues were displayed. The most famous one is the Laocoon. This statue is of a Trojan priest and his sons being attacked by serpents sent by the god Apollo after Laocoon warned the Trojans “beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The gift being the Trojan horse which was a ply for the Greeks to attack the Trojans.

There is so much to see in the museums and it is difficult to take it all in. I don’t know anything about much of what we saw, but I’ll just post some photos of things.

We entered the Round Room were there are statues encircling the room. There is a large bronze statue of Hercules and in the center of the room is a very large vessel known as Nero’s Bathtub.

One of the things I love seeing is the mosaic tiles. Many of the floors were beautiful mosaic tile, like around the bathtub above. We walked over lots of different mosaics.

We then walked through the Gallery of Tapestries. I was really struck by how vibrant some of the colors were, considering how old the tapestries are. They were really beautiful. The painter Raphael designed many of the tapestries hanging in this gallery. His series depicts the life of Jesus. Raphael drew what was described as cartoons that were placed on the back side of the tapestries which were then woven in silk and wool. Here are a couple of closeups of sections from two tapestries.

On the upper wall and ceiling in this gallery were a couple of paintings that appeared almost like 3-D. The interesting use of perspective and shade give you the sense that parts of the painting are sticking out.

Then we entered the Map Gallery, or what Oxanna called the Wow Gallery. The focus in this gallery is the many maps drawn on the walls showing Italian regions, the Italian peninsula, the neighboring Italian Islands and the Papal territories. The maps are frescoes painted hundreds of years ago, but the maps are about 80% accurate which is pretty amazing. However, the maps aren’t the wow factor. The ceiling is. Many apparently mistake this ceiling for the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and I understand why. The ceiling is almost 600 feet long and the paintings the entire length of the ceiling tell the story of important historical events from each region of Italy.

And this was above the exit door from the Gallery of Maps.

Then we were herded into the Sistine Chapel. I had read that there would be scaffolding covering everything due to cleaning of the paintings, but I was happy to see no scaffolding. The Sistine Chapel is probably the most famous attraction inside the Vatican. And when I said herded into, I meant that we were standing shoulder to shoulder with probably 800 people packed into a relatively small space. The room is 131 feet long, 42 feet wide and 65 feet tall. All the walls and the entire ceiling are covered in stunning frescoes. The chapel was built between 1475 and 1480. The chapel is used for the conclave when the cardinals meet to vote on who becomes the next Pope. From inside the chapel, a stove is set up, attached to a chimney going outside, where either black smoke (no Pope selected) or white smoke (a new Pope has been elected) signals to the outside world the outcome of the vote. The very first conclave was in 1492 and every pope since then has been elected by the conclave within the Sistine Chapel.

There was one bench around the perimeter of the chapel and for those lucky enough to grab a space, like we were, you can simply spend your time in the chapel gazing at the fantastic frescoes decorating all the walls and the ceiling. In some sense, the walls are even more interesting to view because they are larger. The ceiling, painted by Michelangelo, tells Old Testament stories and it is somewhat difficult to see who’s who among the many paintings. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed within the chapel with guards yelling “no photos” over and over again. Oxanna explained why no photos are allowed. Apparently, every several years, some company is hired to clean all the paintings. The last company that did the cleaning, a Japanese company, apparently managed to obtain a copy write for their work with all the paintings and so their copy write prevents picture-taking. Of course, lots of people sneaked photos, including me.

Then it was on to St. Peter’s Basilica. It was pretty cool to walk towards St. Peter’s and see the balcony where the Pope stands to address the crowd in the square.

The correct name is the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican. The original church on this site was built in the 4th century by Constantine the Great. The current basilica was built from 1506 to 1626 and is one of the most renowned works of Italian Renaissance architecture and is the largest church in the world by interior measure. The church is presumed to be on the site of St. Peter’s crucifixion and burial. And what a beautiful church it is.

It struck me as a very magnificent building in an elegant, stately manner. It wasn’t at all gaudy or opulent, but I think that’s because it is so large that everything is spread out. Michelangelo was certainly a busy fellow, painting the Sistine Chapel, being one of the architects of the basilica, and creating a marvelous sculpture that is located in the basilica, the Pieta.

We only had one little hiccup the entire tour. Christine went off to find a bathroom, which Oxanna pointed out. Christine had trouble locating the place, and then when found, the line was incredibly long. In the interim, our tour was finishing up and we needed to return our radio devices. Of course, Christine was wearing hers so we had to find her. Oxanna and I wandered around for a while looking for Christine. Oxanna was smart in that she spoke into her radio device calling Christine and saying where we were in the basilica. Christine, upon returning to the basilica, heard Oxanna and was then able to find us. All’s well that ended well in terms of finding each other and returning the radio device.

We then made our way through St. Peter’s Square, a really massive area. We saw a member of the Pontifical Swiss Guard standing at his post. This is the armed force and honor guard unit that protects the Pope and palace within Vatican City.

The weather was relatively nice and so we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was a pleasant walk along the river and we were enjoying seeing the sights.

We got to Piazza Santa Maria just in time to go into the Basilica of Santa Maria, which we hadn’t been able to do on Tuesday. It was full of mosaics and had a very intricate ceiling.

After leaving the church we went to a restaurant with outdoor seating to have an early dinner. We enjoyed sitting out along the narrow cobblestone street watching the people go by. We chatted with a couple from Montreal at the next table. They were interested in talking about American politics. And interestingly, the woman worked at Pratt and Whitney, the company Christine worked for on a contract related to their airplane engines.

Back at the hotel, we were both tired after our information-loaded day. I wish I could remember 10% of what Oxanna talked about. But, we both enjoyed our Vatican tour and especially the walk home along the river. It was a nice day, one in which the weather was not such a negative.

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