Andre and Wendy: Vatican City

Today we have reservations for an 8:30 tour of the Vatican Museums and Saint Peters Basilica. We decided to walk, which is about 45 minutes from our apartment, it is a nice walk, but some of these buildings are so huge it takes so long to get around the buildings.

This was a fantastic tour, that was not too expensive. If you book directly with the museums themselves for tours early you can get some great tours, so much cheaper than a tour company. The tour of the Museum part only covered a small section of the museums, which are over 7km of museums, you could spend an entire week here and still not see everything! The tour was just over 3 hours, then we spent about another 1.5 hours in and around the Basilica climbing the Dome and going to the Crypt. The Basilica is huge, like 2 football fields in length, but it doesn't seem so big because the columns are so big that the proportion just looks like a regular big church.

Lineups for the Vatican museums and armed security everywhere

Free water fountain, these are quite common in the cities, you just carry an empty bottle with you and fill up

Huge brass pinecone in the courtyard from the 1st or 2nd century

Many of the church domes are said to be inspired by the Pantheon

Hercules bronze statue in back

Beautiful tapestries from Belgium

The next 2 pictures are a long hall with the maps of parts of Italy. On one side was the east coast and the other side the West coast. The ceiling had paintings of the regions of the maps.

From the Raphael Rooms, the public part of the papal apartments that are on the tour

Original ceiling from the 1400/1500

Painting worth 100 million which was donated

Sistine chapel, no pictures allowed, not sure how Andre got this one, it was extremely packed with people and lots of security watching for pictures. It was beautiful inside but definitely not a peaceful place to be, way too many people and it is quite a small area for all those people to be in at once

Inside St. Pauls Basilica at the entrance is La Pieta sculpture by Michelangelo, now protected by glass as someone attacked it a few years ago.

Dome climb

Middle section of the dome climb where you are still inside

The last part of this dome climb had pretty tiny stairs and the walls all leaned in, it was a weird feeling

View of Vatican Museums (huge, over 7 km of museum) from top of dome

Stairs going down, around and around and around...

Part way down you come out on a rooftop for even more beautiful views

View from rooftop

Out on one of the roofs of the Basicila

Back inside the Basilica, list of all the Popes

Swiss Guards on duty at Basilica

After our tour we walked to Castle Sant’Anglo which is across from the Basilica and had some amazing views. Crossed the pedestrian footbridge here for more nice views.

Castle Sant’Anglo

Maybe a little overkill lugging this tripod around for your iPhone camera?

Our breakfast has now been long worked off . We stopped at a little restaurant that I had read reviews that serve Italian deep fried rice balls, suppli, we tried 3 different kinds, very yummy. I had a prosecco and Andre some red wine. A great lunch at 3:30 which was long overdue.

Suppli (like deep fried rice balls, these had tomato sauce and cheese in the middle, yummy)

We picked up a couple of things at the bakery to add to our supper from last night. A couple of nice bread and canoli for dessert as well as a bottle of wine.

Restaurants try to temp you to come inside with these beautiful displays outside of what is on their menu

Another tempting restaurant display

When ever you can find somewhere to sit you take advantage!

Lots of cobblestone streets, click, click, click

I take a much needed nap, then Andre wakes me up to go up Piazzale Giuseppe Garibaldi, which is about a 20 minute walk up a hill behind our apartment to watch the sunset. What a beautiful spot. We have great views over the city as well as the back of the Basilica. It is fun to try to pick out the places we have visited the last couple of days.