Today we went to The Vatican. It was totally incredible. I can only think of two ways of describing it:
- Go there yourself and experience it for yourself.
- Get a decent book, or more likely several volumes.
We took a guided tour of St Peter's Basilica. IThere is no entry fee but the tour cost E15 each, I thought it was well worth it. As an aside the tour guide is a Roman who is getting married in Olinda this coming December. Small world? Anyway St Peter's itself would warrant several books to describe, so I am going to limit my effort to a couple of photos.
We also visited the Vatican Museum. In actual fact there are a number of Vatican museums, we went to the "main" one that includes the Sistine Chapel. It cost E15 each for admission and we paid E7 for an audio guide, again well worth it. Again it is incredibly rich and has to be seen and experienced. Again I am going to limit myself to a couple of photos that don't even begin to do justice what's in the place.
The last part of the Vatican Museum (not counting the gift shops) is the Sistine Chapel. We walked through a lot of unbelievably rich art to get to the Sistine Chapel, so I was starting to "tune out" to it. Once we got there though it was easy to understand what the fuss is all about, it is really mesmeric and spellbinding. For me the images on the ceiling were just unbelievable, they were almost 3D they were that good. Once again there are countless volumes written about the Sistine Chapel, but this time I will not supply any photos of my own - photography is not allowed in the Sistine Chapel.
Whilst the chapel itself is brilliant, the handling of it does leave a bit to be desired. I do consider myself fortunate to have been in there and seen it first hand but I do wonder how long they will be able to keep funnelling so many people in before they destroy what they came to see. I have no doubt it is very well managed and long may it remain so. But there were still people taking pictures in there and also staying a long time so sometimes it got quite loud. A couple of staff at the front kept calling out "no pictures" and "silence" but really they were on a hiding to nothing. We must have stayed at least 15 - 30 minutes, I don't really know, but we could easily have stayed longer.
In short, an absoiute must see" if you're in the area.
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