Luckily neither Chris nor I caught on fire when we entered the city gates into Vatican City. Vatican City is so tiny that we were shocked to hear it has it’s own passport and police service.
We spent all of our time touring St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel. St. Peter’s Basilica is exquisite! There were so many beautiful things to look at I didn’t know where to start. It better be since half of the building materials were stripped from other buildings such as the Pantheon and the Colosseum.
We had planned on visiting the Vatican for only one day. We failed to realize that the only entrance inot the Sistine Chapel was through the Vatican museum. Rather than waiting in line we bought our tickets online for the following day, allowing us to skip the 2-3 hour line instead. The museum was surprisingly beautiful. It was full of paintings, statues and wonderfully decorated rooms. It was crazy to see how much detail goes into some of the paintings and ceiling décor. Upon entering the Sistine Chapel I was shocked at the size. For some reason I expected it to be a lot larger than it really was. I guess I shouldn’t expect that since one man completed all of the paintings himself. There is not one inch of wall that has not been painting. There is so much detail that it is hard to focus. Our audio guide was a great help though. It gave us a better appreciation for what story was being told. The most exciting part about being in the Chapel was to watch the guards… Yes you read right. I said guards. Their sole job was to make sure that people do not take photos. They take their job very seriously. They would jolt across the entire room yelling “no photos! No photos!” while making their way to the culprits. Not many people abided by the no photo rule so we took some time to people watch and see how many sneaky ways people could think of to take these forbidden photos. Some people are pretty darn crafty.
As beautiful as the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s basilica was it is probably a place I would not go back to. It is a once in a life time experience.
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