Our Day at Vatican City (Oct. 29, 2014)

Today we got up early, as we were so tired last night, that we went to bed right after our spaghetti and salad dinner. Which, by the way, was fantastic. It is so nice to be able to cook and have a fridge to use, at the hostel. Anyway, we had decided to go to see the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum, which is basically, the Vatican City. A huge set of buildings with art of various types in each of the 1000 rooms. We didn’t go to all the rooms, but saw about 5 hours of the Vatican quite nicely.

We went for our complimentary breakfast again, walked to Termini Station to get the subway, and checked out the airport bus times for mom, tomorrow night………….sniff, sniff. Then we took the subway to the Vatican. It was huge, and there was about a two hour, if not more, line up to buy tickets. Luckily, we already knew this, and purchased our tix online last night. Therefore, we jumped the line and went right in.

On our way to the Vatican City, we passed this guy selling roasted chestnuts on the street. Last time I was in Italy, I had these and they were fantastic. So, of course we stopped to buy some, and munched them all down right there on the street corner. We had to, because they make a mess with the shells, and there was a garbage bin right there, so we just hung out for  a short while and ate them. They were amazing and just as delicious as I remembered them, last time I ate them, in Italy.

There was a nice English family that was thinking about getting them too, so I piped up and said they were delicious. They bought some and were super happy as well. Their teenage girls were just chowing down on these warm roasted chestnuts. We asked them to take our picture, so they did.

Mom and me eating chestnuts

Once at the Museum, we got our audio guides and set off to learn about the place. I had been once before, but there is so much to see, that you can’t help but notice new and exciting things the second time you go as well. There is so much rich culture, art and especially paintings. It is really breathtaking. We walked for about 5 hours total, with a couple of little sit downs in between. One of our breaks was in the big cafeteria lounge area, where we ate lunch and got renewed with some fresh energy. It was a nice break and we both felt a lot better and ready to rock. We had spent the first part of the time, going straight to the Sistine Chapel as it was our primary goal to see, and the other rooms, secondary. The Chapel was as incredible as I remembered it, except possibly a little better, because they had just done some restorations on the paintings which seemed to be a lot brighter than the last time I saw them. We scored a seat on one of the side marble benches, which is not an easy feat.

Once people sit down there, they don’t get up until they’re ready to leave, as someone else will instantly take their spot. That’s what we did, and then stayed there, listening to our audio guides for over an hour. I think mom imagined the Sistine Chapel as being bigger, but loved it in any case, because it is so incredible. Then we moved on to see some of the other rooms. We looked on the map and found that we had missed the set of apartment rooms frescoed by Raphael, so we walked back, the whole length of the Vatican, to see them. You have no idea how far this is!

One of the frescoed ceilings at the Vatican

A mosaic floor at the Vatican

The last, incredible staircase to exit the Vatican!

Poor mom, though a major trooper, was getting pretty shaky legged by the time we had done that long walk through the halls of tapestries, maps, artifacts, Modern Art, sculptures, paintings and frescoes, that she was very glad to see the exit doors. Before we could exit, we were led in this crazy maze of walkways that went up the stairs, down the stairs, back through things we’d seen, but couldn’t go in reverse. It was all quite exhausting. When we finally began to think that there was an end to the maze, there was one last set of winding stairs we had to take, in order to get out. Both of us, sighed, rallied our poor bodies, then descended. The stairs were at least really pretty, so were picture worthy, but wow, what a trip! We finally escaped in one, well, two pieces, and took the subway home to rest, blog and make our dinner. What a great day!

Rome's idea of mosaic work in the subway tunnel.......Beautiful isn't it?