Vatican City

On Tuesday morning Tom and I took a tour of the Vatican Museums and saw the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s Basilica. We arrived half an hour late for the tour, due to the fact that busses in Rome tend to come whenever they want even if you’ve been standing at the stop for half an hour. However, we got really lucky and didn’t miss the tour group- they waited a while for us, but then the guide began to describe the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and we missed most of the explanation by the time we got there. (Thankfully I had my Rome book to teach me about what we missed) After the lesson on the Sistine Chapel, we headed into to museums. It’s amazing, really, how much art has been collected by the popes. It was filled with ancient, Renaissance and modern paintings, sculptures, and other works of art. It’s hard to explain most of what I saw. It’s one of those see-it-for-yourself museums. Every work of art is different and appeals to different kinds of people, so the ones that I stared at for 10 minutes could have been a piece that others passed by in 10 seconds. It’s been said that people like to hurry through the museums in order to get to the final destination- the Sistine Chapel- but I stopped when I was intrigued and didn’t move on until I saw something else that caught my eye. Being on a tour helped, too- When the guide was describing a particular art, I either paid attention if I was interested or took the time to wander to another piece and still get hear what she had to say about the particular era. We started with the ancient art, and then moved on to statues, candelabra, tapestries and maps before spending a lot of time in the Raphael Rooms. I really enjoyed the Raphael rooms. Although religious, the art was beautiful and the tour guide did a good job in explaining the important impact he had in the Renaissance and the power behind his art. The gallery of the Candelabras and Tapestries are well worth seeing, as well. The history behind them didn’t intrigue me as much as the skill it must have taken to create the works did. It was also amazing to see how each civilization borrows from and builds on the previous ones art.
We made it through the length of the museums and reached the Sistine Chapel. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in there, but it could have been my favorite part of the day. Michelangelo depicted a story from Genesis in each section of the ceiling. The creation story, although I’m not in any way religiously affiliated with the work, intrigues me like no other. I had to use my travel book to help me understand what I was looking at, but it was all so dramatic and – perfect, honestly.
We moved on to St. Peter’s Basilica via a secret hallway our tour guide told us about. To say the Basilica was big would be an understatement. It measures 187m by 137m along the transepts. Every step we took we found another part of the Basilica tucked away behind a pillar. Obviously it was packed with tourists, but it was definitely worth the experience to visit another gem in the history of religion and art. Of course, it was just epically beautiful.
Vatican City was once the mightiest power in Europe- and even thought today it’s just another popular tourist attraction, it really makes you stop and think about the history it holds and the importance of literally every piece of art or architecture in there. Truly the epitome of shock and awe.