Italy #5: Vaticano

The main item on our first full day in Italy was a guided tour of the Vatican. As I said earlier, our hotel was close to all the tourist spots of Rome, so we walked to the Vatican. Along the way, we stumbled upon an obscure, easy to miss church. Even that had such beautiful art on the walls and ceiling as well as mosaics. It would turn out to be a preview of the excellence of Italian art during all our trip.

 

Our group guide (about 10-12 people) was a part-time archaeologist. She pointed out that the Vatican is a separate country, not a part of the “Republic of Italy” (I’d see that Italians everywhere take pride that since ancient times, they’ve been a republic, not a monarchy). The guides give everyone a radio receiver and earphones so you can hear the guide in crowded, noisy places even if you wander off or fall behind.

 

Right before going to the main part of the Vatican, our guide stopped us at an open area, and pulled out some chart paper sized prints of different parts of the Sistine Chapel. She then talked us through the details, the things to pay attention to, as described in an earlier blog. Only later, I realized why she did this so early: (1) there are not too many areas to stop and talk at such detail once you are inside; and (2) later, we’d be too exhausted, physically and mentally, to absorb it.

 

The amount of great art, the intricacy of the carvings and sculptures, the paintings on the walls and ceilings, it is all awesome. And at the end of all that, you enter the Sistine Chapel. No matter how many pics you have seen it, it still blows you away when you see the size of the room, how high up the ceiling is.

 

In front of the Vatican is a tall obelisk, brought all the way from Egypt. It has a cross at its top to celebrate the victory of Christianity over the pagans. 

We climbed to the top of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, not all 551 steps but 320 steps (we took the paid elevator up for the rest). Nice view of the Vatican square and the obelisk from the top.

 

One last thing. The Swiss guards of the Vatican. When we saw one at the Vatican, we almost burst out laughing – it looks like a court jester! 

Our guide proudly told us that the uniform was designed by… Michelangelo. Well, I thought, Michelangelo might be the greatest sculptor and a great artist, but he sure wasn’t a great, er, fashion designer.

 

After we returned, when I googled it up, I realized that is just a myth. The uniform was designed by someone else, as recently as the 1900’s. And those bright colors, the red, blue and yellow? They were the colors of those powerful bankers from Florence, the Medicis.

 

Afterword: We lucked out in the timing of our Vatican visit. A couple of weeks later, the Pope passed away and the Sistine Chapel was closed to tourists (the Cardinals would meet there). Soon after, as all the world leaders came to the Vatican, the entire place was off limits. My wife mentioned that she had been monitoring the Pope’s health right before/during our visit praying his health wouldn’t impact our trip. We’d dodged one bullet in our Italian holiday. It wouldn’t be the last one.