Roma
Vatican City and the Like
The next day, we opted for all things religious, so we headed to Vatican City, the smallest sovereign state in the world with an area of less than 1km^2. We wanted to employ the same strategy of waking up early to beat the crowds wanting to get into St Peter’s Basilica but david only managed to get back to the campsite that morning after the metro stopped running at 10pm the night before. The queue for the basilica extended around one half of St Peter’s square, a massive 17th century gathering place for Christians designed by Bernini lined by 2 semicircular colonnades. The basilica was impressive. It was a notch above all the other basilicas I’ve seen around Europe, because of the many sculptures that adorn the interior. Many of them are of catholic saints and funerary monuments of popes but have been beautifully carved by the masters of that time. It is the 2nd largest basilica in the world, and took 150 years to complete. Michelangelo’s (yeah the orange one!) light-filled dome which made this basilica considerably brighter than all others was a highlight but we couldn’t afford the energy (or money) to scale all 119 meters to the top. No, we didn’t go down into the grottos to see the burial place of St Peter and the popes, and neither did we catch a glimpse of the current Pope. But we did test the efficiency of the Vatican post, but sending a postcard back to the other 2 at home – we’ll see how long that takes to get to Singapore. Heh. We didn’t get to use the Vatican currency too.
The other highlight of Vatican City is the Musei Vaticani which contains the Sistine Chapel. The former had an extensive collection of sculptures, sarcophagi, ancient Christian paintings, tapestry, and art pieces. But I liked the Map room best. It was a long hallway with huge painted maps on the walls. Among the many rooms boasting paintings by Raphael and his students, was a well-known masterpiece ‘La Scuola d’Atene’ (‘The School of Athens’), depicting Plato (a guise for Leonado da Vinci), Aristotle and philosophers and scholars around them, including some of the other Italian artists and a self-portrait of Raphael. But like most people, we only visited the Museum because we wanted to see the famous Sistine Chapel, where the papal conclave is locked in to elect the new pope. It is also home to the most famous pieces of art in the world. We had to go through a million rooms before we finally came to it. The chapel was originally built in 1484 for Pope Sixtus IV, hence the name, but it was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to decorate it. He was reluctant but eventually spent 4 years lying down on the scaffolding under the windows, to complete the impressive frescoes on the ceiling, which depeicts 9 scenes from Genesis and some other prophets. He also painted one of the walls with a highly complicated piece called ‘The Last Judgment’. The rest of the walls were completed by other important Renaissance artists like Botticelli and Pinturicchio, and depicts scenes from the lives of Moses and Christ. The small chapel was packed with people, all controlled by a very fierce guard who forbad anyone from sitting down or talking too loudly. The result was many strained necks from trying to appreciate the paintings on the wall, and recognizing the scenes, as well as a headache from the myriad of colours and intricate details in the paintings. The last thing worth mentioning about the Vatican is that the guards are dressed in really cute outfits, one variant makes them look like clowns, but I’m sure they’re highly trained soldiers. Check them out in the pictures!
After 6 hours inside the walls of the Vatican, we thought we were done, but when we headed to San Giovani to check out the church where St Peter’s and St Paul’s heads are kept as relics, we were barred from entry because apparently the Pope was going there to give a speech. So, instead of seeing the interior of yet another church, which was the 1st Christian cathedral built in Rome, as well as the pope’s seat as bishop of Rome and supposedly very beautiful inside, we had to contend with groups of clergies and nuns literally running into the cathedral to get good seats after passing through strict security checks. People were gathering in the square outside the cathedral but we didn’t want to wait and followed our (empty) guts and went a-hunting for lunch/dinner instead. Side-tracked once again, we stopped by Scala Santa, the holy staircase in Pilate’s court in Jerusalem which Jesus was believed to have traversed a few times on the day of his condemnation. It was brought back to Rome by St Helena, the mother of Constantine. We didn’t get to the top of that staircase because you had to climb it on your knees, and the Pope’s private chapel at the top demanded an entry fee (hmmm, does he have to get up the same way too?)
We had kebabs that night, and great fun watching the Netherlands-Italy match on big screen back at the campsite. It was especially interesting to be in the midst of the Dutch, all decked out in orange shirts/jerseys, jumping up from their seats every time they scored; and Italians, waving flags and cheering their losing side on. There, we watched a football match in Italy afterall. :p
On the last day, everyone overslept, and we had to abandon plans to head to Florence early in the morning. First, we headed back to the Colosseum and tried to sell off our Roma Passes because it still had 1 more free sight visit left in it. Sharon and I sold it to a couple, but apparently it didn’t work because we had already used to pass once at the Colosseum. Sigh. In the end, David and I went outside the Capitoline Museum and sold off everything. Took a lot of courage there, standing right outside the ticket office and trying to stop people before they went in to buy their own tickets. Heh. All to salvage some of the value of the Roma Pass.... I would still recommend tourists to buy it though, i think it might still be cheaper.
The other highlight of Vatican City is the Musei Vaticani which contains the Sistine Chapel. The former had an extensive collection of sculptures, sarcophagi, ancient Christian paintings, tapestry, and art pieces. But I liked the Map room best. It was a long hallway with huge painted maps on the walls. Among the many rooms boasting paintings by Raphael and his students, was a well-known masterpiece ‘La Scuola d’Atene’ (‘The School of Athens’), depicting Plato (a guise for Leonado da Vinci), Aristotle and philosophers and scholars around them, including some of the other Italian artists and a self-portrait of Raphael. But like most people, we only visited the Museum because we wanted to see the famous Sistine Chapel, where the papal conclave is locked in to elect the new pope. It is also home to the most famous pieces of art in the world. We had to go through a million rooms before we finally came to it. The chapel was originally built in 1484 for Pope Sixtus IV, hence the name, but it was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to decorate it. He was reluctant but eventually spent 4 years lying down on the scaffolding under the windows, to complete the impressive frescoes on the ceiling, which depeicts 9 scenes from Genesis and some other prophets. He also painted one of the walls with a highly complicated piece called ‘The Last Judgment’. The rest of the walls were completed by other important Renaissance artists like Botticelli and Pinturicchio, and depicts scenes from the lives of Moses and Christ. The small chapel was packed with people, all controlled by a very fierce guard who forbad anyone from sitting down or talking too loudly. The result was many strained necks from trying to appreciate the paintings on the wall, and recognizing the scenes, as well as a headache from the myriad of colours and intricate details in the paintings. The last thing worth mentioning about the Vatican is that the guards are dressed in really cute outfits, one variant makes them look like clowns, but I’m sure they’re highly trained soldiers. Check them out in the pictures!
After 6 hours inside the walls of the Vatican, we thought we were done, but when we headed to San Giovani to check out the church where St Peter’s and St Paul’s heads are kept as relics, we were barred from entry because apparently the Pope was going there to give a speech. So, instead of seeing the interior of yet another church, which was the 1st Christian cathedral built in Rome, as well as the pope’s seat as bishop of Rome and supposedly very beautiful inside, we had to contend with groups of clergies and nuns literally running into the cathedral to get good seats after passing through strict security checks. People were gathering in the square outside the cathedral but we didn’t want to wait and followed our (empty) guts and went a-hunting for lunch/dinner instead. Side-tracked once again, we stopped by Scala Santa, the holy staircase in Pilate’s court in Jerusalem which Jesus was believed to have traversed a few times on the day of his condemnation. It was brought back to Rome by St Helena, the mother of Constantine. We didn’t get to the top of that staircase because you had to climb it on your knees, and the Pope’s private chapel at the top demanded an entry fee (hmmm, does he have to get up the same way too?)
We had kebabs that night, and great fun watching the Netherlands-Italy match on big screen back at the campsite. It was especially interesting to be in the midst of the Dutch, all decked out in orange shirts/jerseys, jumping up from their seats every time they scored; and Italians, waving flags and cheering their losing side on. There, we watched a football match in Italy afterall. :p
On the last day, everyone overslept, and we had to abandon plans to head to Florence early in the morning. First, we headed back to the Colosseum and tried to sell off our Roma Passes because it still had 1 more free sight visit left in it. Sharon and I sold it to a couple, but apparently it didn’t work because we had already used to pass once at the Colosseum. Sigh. In the end, David and I went outside the Capitoline Museum and sold off everything. Took a lot of courage there, standing right outside the ticket office and trying to stop people before they went in to buy their own tickets. Heh. All to salvage some of the value of the Roma Pass.... I would still recommend tourists to buy it though, i think it might still be cheaper.
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