Euroadventure stop 4: Rome: Day 2

Day 1 was classical Rome. We decided to start Day 2 off with the Vatican City (since we didn't want to put it off until the weekend; God only knows how crazy the Vatican would have been on Good Friday) A short, crowded tube trip away we joined the thronging pilgrim crowds on their way to a very long lineup outside the Vatican city walls to get into the main attraction: the Vatican museum.
Now, many people are not huge into museums. I'll confess to being a museum geek, but this is no ordinary museum. The Vatican museum is literal kilometres of gallery space including original renaissance masterworks and some of the best ancient artifacts in collections anywhere, too. And it has the main event: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel! The museum is actually the big unused parts of the old papal palaces; from back when popes weren't just religious leaders but also civil and military ones, too.

 The wall. A little weird that a place meant to be so holy would seem so foreboding. But we decided to take it as more a reminder of the papacy's history than a disincentive to visit.

 First was an Ancient statuary section, including this one strikingly realistic Egyptian Anubis. I mean, except for the dog's head thing.

The grounds were gorgeous, and this was just one view from the galleries. The boards set up around the perimeter are diagrams of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and tour guides take their groups here to the picture to explain before they go to the chapel since it gets so super-crowded.

The Laocoon. Troy's high priest and his sons are devoured by snakes. Seeing it in person, you get nervous and uncomfortable on their behalf.

When I say kilometers of gallery space, I mean it. LONG hallways full of paintings, tapestries, and statuary.

The Vatican City parking lot. I'll bet the red Fiat is the pope's.

Wall painting depicting Constantine's victory

St Peter being freed from prison.

Raphael's school of Athens. Yeah. THE school of Athens, on a wall in this building. The tragedy: by this point most people were so tired they were just shuffling through to get to the Chapel.

Now for the bad news: no Sistine photos. It was against the rules and I don't blame them. It was an absolute ZOO in there. Suffice to say we had cricks in our neck from staring at the ceiling, but it was super-gratifying to see it with our own eyes.
 After the chapel we shuffled back out of the museum, grabbed a panini for lunch, and then strolled round the corner to St Peter's Sq and Basilica.

Most of my attempts at using the panorama feature on the camera have been a bit wonky. It's a bit distorted, but I hope it helps capture how big the space felt.

You can always tell which one is Peter, because he's got keys.

Chairs were set up, empty, from this morning's papal audience. We went to the museum instead, trying to avoid the crowds.

The Swiss guards. A passer-by who heard me wonder aloud confirmed that they are still actually Swiss.

The basilica facade.

The line was so long and the sun so hot we decided that, at best, St Peter's would be just another big, impressive old church and decided to make back towards central Rome to spend the afternoon living La Dolce Vita. We hopped back on the train and got off at the Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps

Piazza del Popolo. This Oval-shaped plaza was, in days of yore, the fancy entry point for pilgrims coming from the north of the city.

There are three streets leading south into the city here, bisected by these 2 churches. the centre strip runs to the Colloseum and the Forum. The left avenue runs to Santa Maria Maggiore (a big pilgrim church and, incidentally, right next to our convent), and the right one down to the Vatican.

 We decided to camp out here in the piazza for a while. We found a bench in the shade, read our books, and enjoyed the sounds of street performers and pushy flower salesmen. We'd planned to take in the haute couture and fine dining off the main street here from the piazza in the evening but the later it got the more the last two days' adventuring got to us, so we trucked back to our home neighborhood and went out for really really nice pizza, instead.