Italy: Rome ~ Day 3

Rome

4/2/12 - 4/5/12

View of St. Peter's on our way to the top of the Basilica

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Megan and I with a Statue

4/4/12 ~ We actually woke up on time this morning! It was a day spent in Vatican City at the Vatican Museum, St. Peter's, and at the top of the Basilica! First stop of the day: cappuccino and creme filled cornetti (kind of like a croissant). Next stop: the line to get into the Museum. The line wrapped around the corner by the time we got there, however we were there before opening so the line was destined to be built up when we got there. There were tour people walking around offering a guided tour of the museum as well as getting to cut the line, but we had our guide, Megan, and didn't want to pay the extra money. The wait was only about 40 minutes before we got in. We started off with the tapestries, which apparently in ones with people there is always one person who will be staring at you if the tapestry is hung at the proper height (note: most facts in this blog are from our awesome tour guide Megan). I have to say the tapestries were one of my favorite part of the day. We then headed off to the statues. So many. Many of them are also "fig leaved" from one point in history where nudity was deemed a no no and they went around putting fig leaves on the nude statues. 

Crazy Spherical Thing

In the middle of our trip we took a break outside in the court yard. In the middle is a sphere of crazy makings that really does not fit in with the old theme of the Vatican, but there are a few all over Ireland and we think of them as alien placed globes. We also took some funny pictures where we look like we are sitting in the old stone bath tubs that are outside. While sitting outside an asian girl sat next to Megan, who was sitting facing us. Her friend took a picture of her next to Megan because of her red hair, which I thought was funny. 

Bath tub reading time

We then went over to see the old artifacts and then to the paintings. Our last stop: Sistine Chapel! WOW! WOW! WOW! I can't even describe how amazing it was. I thought the paintings on the walls leading up to it were cool, but WOW the Chapel was epic. We were not supposed to take pictures so sorry I have none. It was just so epic. 

St. Peter's Basilica

After the amazing-ness of the Sistine Chapel we realized again that we are bad at feeding ourselves so we headed over to Old Bridge for gelato and then stopped at an open market, where I got a few presents, before making out way to St. Peter's Basilica. 

Yup that is all mosaic ceiling... Epic right?

The inside of the Basilica is done in a Baroque style so it doesn't look as large as it really is inside. For example there is a statue that doesn't look huge until you find out that the guy's hat is 6 feet tall and then you are like wow thats huge. Also there are no paintings in St. Peters all of the artwork as well as the ceiling artwork is done in mosaic tiles, some of the works you can't even tell are mosaic because the pieces are so small. Basically it is just more epicness added into our day because that is the only way to describe it. EPIC.

Climbing to the top

The next part of our journey in the Basilica was to climb to the top of the dome of the Basilica. The picture at the beginning of this blog looking down at the inside of St. Peter's on our climb to the top of the Basilica. At this point in the day we were getting slightly tired and worn down so we decided to skip the first part of the stairs and spend the extra few euros to take the elevator as far as we could. We then finished by climbing the last 320 stairs to the top... a lot of stairs. There was even a point where we were climbing in the dome where the ceiling was slanted and it was hard to stand up straight and climb at the same time. When we got to the top we got an amazing view of Rome. It was spectacular! 

Me at the top of the Basilica

After reaching the top and spending some time there it was time to head down and leave Vatican City. We needed to go over to the train station and buy our tickets to go to Florence for the next day. We fought a little with the ticket machines before we got what we wanted, but eventually we got our tickets. It was around 7 p.m. and all we had eaten was a small breakfast and gelato... again we are bad at feeding ourselves when having fun. We headed over to La Fate for dinner. It is a small restaurant that Megan used to go to when she studied abroad in Rome with her college, and what a coincidence we ran into some of her old Rome teachers. It was a delicious meal. I got "angry pasta": Penne all' Arrabbiata. It is a spicy pasta dish that was delicious.

We then went back to Graham and Francesca's where Francesca made us a meat sauce and pasta. It was accompanied with wine and great company. We then finished the meal off with a delicious tiramisu before passing out from exhaustion.