Vatican and Night Tours

I just realized that I don't have too much to say about the Vatican. It's got an awesome museum with mummies and cuneiform tablets, and crazy amounts of Greek statues, and you can even take pictures in there, but we went to the Vatican museum. It's substantial, but it's still a museum. And no matter how much I want to, I cannot make a museum interesting.

Nor can Clio, muse of history

After moseying through the larger-than-you-think Vatican museum, we make it to the smaller-than-you-think Sistine Chapel, crowded with tourists and, ostensibly, doesn't allow photography. But, since it's still a chapel, it's going to go in its own blog post. But, just as a traveller's tip- the Creation of Man is also much smaller than you think it is.

Rick Steves says there's an exit to St. Peter's Basillica from the Sistine Chapel that's used for group tours of both buildings. We were going to try to sneak past the guards (as condoned in the guide book) but the only tour groups in there were old or Asian and we didn't really fit in with any of them. We walked through the end of the Vatican museum, bought food in the cafeteria (recommendation- pack your own sandwich) and began the 15 minute long walk around the walls of Vatican City to get to St. Peter's Square (hint- it's an oval).

Sarai and I were going to climb up the dome, so we left Christine to the pigeons in the square and made our way through the lines. (Tip- it's to the right. The left, with the Swiss guards in the funny uniforms- that's the exit.) We stood and talked and paid for our tickets up and really, it wasn't a bad climb. Much easier than the Florence Duomo, maybe about as bad as the Berliner Dom. You can pay 2 euro extra and ride an elevator part of the way up, like Stephansdom. The easiest way for me to fall in love with a city is to see it from above.

Rome is lovely.


And of course, I poked around in St. Peter's Basilica for a while, but that's another post. Here's a picture, though:

That night we went on a night walk around Rome and saw squares and fountains and more obelisks and columns that I would have thought possible. Really, the Pocket Rome Rick Steves guide that Sarai got from a book exchange at a hostel was quite a catch. I like Rome by night, when the only tourists you have to deal with are at the Trevi fountain, or maybe the Spanish steps.

The horse says Flee from this place of difficult picture taking!

Audrey Hepburn was here. Also, Melissa Joan Hart in Sabrina Goes to Rome.

 There's just so much to see and so much to do. Rome on two days is almost impossible. Good thing we had more.