Vatican

Date: 5/24/18
Location: Vatican City

It was a long walk to Vatican City, but finally we entered on the corner of St. Peter’s Square with St. Peter’s Basilica:

Here is St. Peter’s Basilica. It is Italy’s largest basilica.

We went to the top of the dome. As you approach the top, the slope of the ceiling becomes more and more steep, letting you know that you’re definitely inside of a dome!

After the 551(!) stairs (per all the signs – I didn’t count), we got beautiful views over the city and the Vatican gardens.

It was nice that there was a different set of stairs for people to go down from the dome so there wasn’t any two way traffic. On the way up in the dome there was a platform, just above the words in the below picture, to look down into the church.

St. Peter’s Basilica is huge inside; the pictures don’t do it justice! The darker spiral columns are 95 feet tall.

One of the sculptures is Michelangelo’s Pietà. He sculpted in when he was 25, in 1499.

After St. Peter’s Basilica, we went to the Vatican Museums. We were a little worried about getting in, after waiting in line for two hours at the Colosseum. We had looked for tickets online a couple days before, but none without a tour were available. The normal entrance price is €17 and booking online is an additional €4. The cheapest price for a tour we saw online was €31 and we weren’t hoping to spend that much, so we waited to see what the line looked like assuming there would be many tour guides in the area offering tours like there was at the Colosseum.

The Vatican Museums are open till 6 pm and last entry is at 4 pm. We arrived at around 3:15 pm and there was a railing down the middle of the sidewalk. I heard someone shout groups to one side and individuals on the other, but I missed what side they said. There was a person, who looked official, standing at the entrance of the railing section asking to see tickets. We asked what side for individual tickets and he told us that the individual line was closed for the day (lies!). He said that if we wanted to see the museum today we would need to book a tour and the last one was starting soon. He said we needed to buy tickets at the office. Once we asked where the office was and he offered to walk us then we knew that it was a person with a tour company and not officially with the Vatican Museum. We made the short walk to the tours ticket office and they wanted €50 for a tour. We passed on that.

Still determined to verify that the individual ticket line was closed we went to go find the line. We saw a few signs for where groups enter but didn’t see one for individuals. We asked at the front doors or the Museum and were told the ticket booths were up the stairs. We got right in! There was no line and we were looking for a line. We got our €17 tickets and started walking around at around 3:35 pm.

Key Vatican takeaway: go very late in the day on a weekday (3:30PM) and ignore what anyone tells you on the way that says they are closed!

There were tons of people in the museum and many tour groups. We went into some of the rooms off the main rooms and sometimes we were the only ones in those rooms as the tour groups don’t have time to venture in to all the side exhibits.

I enjoyed the 394 foot long map gallery. The hallway was packed with people, though.

There were 40 huge topographical maps on the walls of areas in Italy. The ones at the end showed all of Italy.

Several included more topographical detail of the mountains.

The Vatican Museum is also where the Sistine Chapel is located. The museum is very strict about no pictures being taken there (sorry!). Michelangelo’s famous painting, The Creation of Adam, was way smaller than I expected.

After the Vatican we went back to our studio and cooked our first dinner in Italy. When we arrived at the Airbnb we were told the refrigerator was broken, so that was an inconvenience (but one we ended up getting a partial refund for!). We have been making breakfast each morning and some small lunches, but this was the first dinner. Fresh pasta shells with zucchini and fresh basilico (basil).

After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up at night.

We enjoyed our time in Rome and our Airbnb was in a nice central location. We saw everything that we wanted to.