We went to a new Country today
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2012
1
82
200
Trip End
Oct 09, 2012
Where I stayed
Vatican City, Lazio, Italy
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Anyways we caught a bus to the centre of town and then a metro... the Metro was awesome fast and well sign posted, the bus trip was slow but that was because of the traffic. Then once we got into town @ the start after we had an italian breakfast at this little cafe down the the backstreets run by these two old Italian Men, who reminded me of Canberra grandpa, in their build (but most Italian old guys look more like THE God Father and less like my thin Grandfather). After that we met our tour guide @ the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. This old church was built out of bricks, so it didn't look all that spectular, but once inside WOW! Beautiful marble floors, Gold trimming on everything. Pretty nice little church, we did not have much time to view as we had to get back out cause out tour around the vatican was about to start.
So we started walking across this bridge of saints, across the tiberis river, then we got over the bridge Past Saint' Angelo which got us to the castle of St Angelo, which was built for one of the emperors, to 'prove' he was the greatest, he ended up dead first, so the church sorta became a masoleum and it is so close to St Peter's Basicillica it's dwarfed anyways (Remember part of the pope's deal with Getting a sovergien state and supporting the Italian Government was that the Basicilica is thhe tallest building in Rome).
Justin explained to us that even though the Vatican is a soverign state, it's missing one of the Vital things that makes it a country: a population. Remember the Pope is German, the Swiss Guard are Swiss, and he told us the cleaners were mexican (another inappropriate comment by my man Justin). He also showed us the 'secret passage' that the pope uses in angels and Demons. We were also told about the Pope Train underground, and there is even a pope helipad.
We walked around the Vatican, seeing the swiss Guard. Being told their are three uniforms, the boring red pants set, the stripey famous set and the predatour invisible set (which is if you see this uniform it's already too late). Then we went out and had Gelatos and sandwichs (interestingly enough I didn't have gelatos right now, but @ the end of the end of the day we were close by and I had a Gelato then, pistachio and Feta flavour... interesting but very different) and this place Justin (our guide) said he had for lunch the first 4months he lived in Rome.
Then we went back in to the vatican, and mainly concerned ourselves at the start with museums and such. They have this security screening area (like the airport), but no passport stamp (they do have a postage stamp, so I sent someone special a postcard...) and no Duty free (cause I know what I wanted to do when I visited the pope was get some cheap cigarettes). We saw some great taperstrys, we also some priceless paintings and many marble statues which were desecrated by the pope and his cronies in the great castration, while some statues if they wern't made of marble but rather bronze or a metal of some sort had a fig leaf covering their shame welded on. Strangely in this Gallery there were many statues of greek/Roman God's taken as plunder from Holy wars and such. But next onto the main event.
We made our way down a few flight of stairs into the Sistene Chapel, on the way Justin told us all about Fresco painting and how Michelango was an unbelievable genius, to be able to do the best Fresco/arguably the best piece of art in the world on his first go in this medium. When you get in, you realise it's a pretty empy room, besides one organ (as it was designed to be the Popes private sanctuary for prayer and reflection), which isn't that big, with the floor space filled to 93% with people standing, just looking @ it. Majestic and beautiful are not big enough words to describe the awes you feell inside this room. We also found out why you are not allowed to take pictures inside the sisteen chapel... Justin said "just do it, everyone does, just remember we never met if you get caught". The reason is because instead of paying the cleaners to clean the roof of the sistene Chapel, the got Kodak to do it for a percentage of the rights to the picture right of the fresco roof, so they get some coin everytime a postcard gets sold, a puzzle gets sold or it features in Angels and demons staring Tom Hanks. Probably one of the best business choices Kodak made.
Once we left the Stistine chapel, we are taken to St Peter'sd Square, which is all decked out with chairs and such for the Pope's message tomorrow. I have already seen the pope when he came to Australia, so we thought we might see something else tomorrow. ThenJustin and us went our seperate ways, we may see him again on thursday when we see Rome @ night tour... we'll see how that goes.
So now we go into The Basicila, which was super built After Not to be out done, another pope descides that St Peter's basicila needs to be bigger and brighter. This wonder of worship buildings, now this place is also huge, and filled with beautiful art and pictures/paintings telling the stories of the bible, marble pillars, floors, walls. Dead popes to the left and to the right on display, couldn't really figure out why. Lots of things hanging from the ceiling, just a big big feast for the eyes that place. But we could not miss our chance to go up the top the Basicila (the Cupola) and it wasn't that many steps, it was less than that Lion thing in Sri Lanka. So we got to the top and looked over Rome, pretty beautiful city, considering it wasn't really planned from my understanding.
Next we went to have dinner down this street @ this little Italian diner, Renee had bass and I had some Tomato spagetti. The street had probably like 7 little resteraunts, and our's had the loudest Mator D, so ours won. We didn't have dinner there instead, we went back to the Gelati place and we got Gelati as was expected. We home and slept.
