Rome Day 3: Papal People
Holy Smokes.
After the Colosseum, the second most important thing for me to see in Rome was the Vatican. As a modern world history teacher last year I spent a lot of time talking about the rise and power of religion in Europe, so it would be cool to see what the hubbub was about.
We headed to our not-so-friendly neighborhood tourist stand where the guy had previously scolded us for asking him where to find the Van Gogh exhibit. He was there, but luckily we were greeted by his colleague who was slightly more amiable. We wanted to buy our tickets ahead of time if possible; Hanna said the line at the Vatican can be absolutely ridiculous. She said normal tickets were 15 euro and theirs were 26, but that included an audio guide (which is 7 euro) and it meant that we didn’t have to wait in line. We decided the extra 8 euro was worth it and picked up the tickets.
We got off the train and dodged hundreds of people attempting to accost us with maps and “free tours” of the Vatican. There were also beggars on the street, which was no surprise since we’d seen them throughout Rome, but these were (as the English would say) proper beggars. We’re talking mangled feet, exposed boils on the forehead, and we’re pretty sure one guy had leprosy. We pointed out the irony of seeing the most deformed and suffering people located the closest to God.
We found our meeting point and were led for half an hour (I wish I was exaggerating) around the entire Vatican to the entrance to the museum. Of course there was pretty much no line. Oh well, that’s the chance you take.
Other than a bunch of sculptures and a weird statue, there’s really not much to see in the museum except for the elaborately decorated ceilings, namely the Sistine Chapel. We walked through what Hanna and I called the “thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth chapels” before we finally arrived at the highly-publicized Sistine Chapel.
Just like the ceilings in our Burbank apartment
It was extremely dark and not very impressive upon first glance, especially since there were about thirty million people inside and several guards constantly yelling at us to shut up and stop taking pictures. NO FOTOS!
Once we found a seat and got to take a longer glance at the elaborately-decorated walls and ceilings while listening to the building’s history on our audio guides, it seemed much more grandiose. It took Michelangelo something like 10 years to complete the ceiling alone, and it was interesting to follow the progression of man (according to the Bible) through the various panels.
After the museum, we headed over to the St. Peter’s Basilica, which is free to get into. We waited in a long line but, since it was late afternoon and close to closing time, the line moved pretty well. We’ve seen a lot of Cathedrals on our sojourn through Europe, but I have to admit…this thing is pretty impressive.
Fotos!
First of all, it’s gigantic. On top of that, it is incredibly ornate with tons of statues and paintings and columns. Surprisingly, fotos were allowed inside, so I was able to snap a few.
We picked up some food and headed back to our bed and breakfast to find our room cleaned. No surprise, the beds were made, towels folded, etc. But then we looked over to the spare bed where we had unloaded all of our clothes. There laid a series of immaculate piles of pristinely folded clothes. The cleaning lady had actually taken the time to fold our clothes and put them in piles. Not only that, but she had taken our books and put them in the shelves on the nightstand and taken our sleeping bags (which we slept in because the room was freezing) and stuffed them back into the bags and placed them in the closet. Also in the closet were our sweatshirts and jackets, conveniently hung up for us.
We imagined an elderly Italian woman puttering around the room mumbling in Italian about what slobs we were. From watching Jersey Shore, we know that Italian mothers are extremely concerned with their domestic duties, so we assumed she had no choice but to clean up. Hanna, of course, took this as an insult to her womanhood and made sure to clean up the room before we left the next day.
As we stood there, mouths agape, our “trust no one” mentality kicked in and we immediately checked to see if anything was missing.
The Chronicles of Colin's European Adventure 