Vatican City
Another lazy morning. We ended up heading out to catch our bus a little after 12pm.
We took the bus to Roma Termini (the train station) where we were going to catch the subway over to St. Peter’s Square. We didn’t have any trouble finding anything but their metro system is crazy! You have to navigate a labyrinth of narrow underground passages, stairwells, and escalators. Then when we got on board, it was literally shoulder to shoulder people. Luckily people gradually got off and gave us more room as we made our way to our stop.
After getting off, we had a little walk to the Vatican from the metro station but it was easy enough to find our way based on a couple signs and large crowds of people. When we arrived, we were a bit taken back by the size of the square. It could have held a football field and was surrounded by columns and had two huge fountains and a big monolith in the middle of the square.
Panorama of St. Peter's Square
At one end of the square is St. Peter’s Basilica (one of the largest churches, if not the largest church in the world) which holds 60,000 people! It took over 100 years to build.
The front entrance to St. Peter's Basilica
The church has a dress code which we were lucky enough to know about ahead of time because we saw a couple people turned away for wearing inappropriate clothing (you had to have your shoulders covered and not be wearing shorts that were deemed too short).
The dress code sign outside St. Peter's
The inside of the church was enormous and it was covered in intricate statues, paintings, decorations, marble columns, and decorated floors. There were a bunch of small “chapels” and altars around the church. Some to saints, popes, etc. Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus, is said to be buried below the basilica (hence the name of the church).
The main altar inside the church
The museums (and Sistine Chapel) were closed because it was a Sunday, so unfortunately we weren’t able to go and see those things. Instead we wandered outside the Vatican and found a snack and some ice cream and then made our way back to the square to just sit and enjoy the sites and crowds.
The inside of the main dome, just above the altar
We were told (and saw signs) that the Vatican was off limits to smoking and we were really looking forward to that because throughout the rest of Rome it was impossible to escape the smell of tobacco. However, we had a difficult time finding a place to sit in the shade around St Peter’s Square that wasn’t just downwind of someone smoking. In fact, we kept moving around the square to new places trying to find a good spot. Whenever we would find one, we would sit down and within 10 minutes someone next to us would light up and we would have to move on.
After our day in the Vatican, we found a restaurant and enjoyed an awesome Italian meal (inside where people couldn’t smoke) and then met up with Sarah and Rene who drove us around the town pointing out some areas we weren’t able to see on our walk-abouts.
Finally we returned to their house and went to bed early in order to catch our flight to Paris in the morning.
Another of the beautiful ceilings within St. Peter's Basilica.
The Vatican has been protected by the Swiss Guard since 1506.
One of the two large fountains in the square
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