The Vatican

May 8th -- Well after a few slow days in Rome we broke out with a bang. We decided to tackle Vatican City...the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. We had read that in order to avoid the long lines it was better to go right after lunch, avoiding the early morning tourists groups. So we took our time getting up and going (which was fine with mom and Gilda after a long day of travel the day before). We took the metro and spent some time window shopping in the various shops lining the streets. We decided to stop for lunch since once we entered the Vatican museum, it would be a long time before we exited (although at this point, little did we know how long!). We found a nice restaurant that seemed to have all your basic Italian food...meats and cheeses, pastas and pizza. You would think that after being in Italy for a couple of weeks now we would have the food down, but somehow Amy and mom made quite the ordering fiasco. They had decided to order a couple of different items and share them. To make a long story short, they ordered the wrong things (and didn't like what they got) and so then tried to correct their mistake. There was a couple next to them that had a dish that Amy wanted so she got the waiter and pointed to it. Little did Amy realize at the time, but that "dish" was part of the entire antipasto on their table. So when the waiter brought it out, it included about 5 plates of food. Gilda and I were at the other end of the table with our simple pizza and lasagna dish respectfully, laughing at all the food on the other end...half of which they had no intentions of eating. We were afraid what the bill was going to be but told them it was up to them to work that out! We had a good laugh. Once we finished with our lunch, we walked to the Vatican Museum. We walked straight in with absolutely no line. We entered the museum and begin our journey. It would be 3 hours before we would finally make it to the culminating room...the Sistine Chapel. Throughout the 4 miles of displays in the museum (which was originally the papal palace), we traced history from the ancient times to the Renaissance. After seeing Egyptian artifacts and Greek and Roman sculptures and Renaissance art, we finally made our way to the Sistine chapel. We had downloaded an audio guide onto our iPods, so we sat down for about 20 minutes and listened to a descriptions of the frescoes in the Chapel. While the room itself is not that grand from a pure size perspective, it is absolutely amazing to think that one man, Michelangelo, painted the frescoes by himself. After just 5 minutes of staring up at the ceiling your neck starts to hurt...and to think that he stood on scaffolding for 4 years looking up and painting. After our audio guide was finished, we took Rick Steves' shortcut out of the Sistine Chapel directly to St. Peter's. It was a great decision because we exited out of the chapel, took a short walk and were on the inside of the gates to St. Peter's. No line...no more security checkpoint right into the Basilica. It saved us about 30 minutes of walking time! Now talk about going from amazing to more amazing....wow!! We entered St. Peter's just after 5pm local time. They had just begun daily mass and the sun was shining down through the windows creating some beautiful sunbeams into the church. The music from the mass could also be heard (although softly at first given the distance from the entry). As you enter the door, you are struck immediately by the grandeur. At over 2 football fields long with a capacity of over 60,000, the size of the church is almost indescribable. When you realize that the main altar with canopy that stands under the dome is 7 stories tall, you then can get a perspective for how tall the dome is (equal to a football field standing on end). We had planned on climbing the dome, but after a long day, decided that we would have to come back another day. We "wandered" through the church and then stood near the altar and St. Peter's tomb to enjoy the music from the mass and take in the beauty. As we were exiting, we stopped to view Michelangelo's Pieta..another unbelievable sculpture from Michelangelo. We then exited into St. Peter's square. Here we were able to look back at the massive church and see the top of the Sistine Chapel and the Pope's apartment. We were tired and more than a little hungry since it was now almost 7pm so we decided that we needed some Gelato. I know....it was dinner time, but just another excuse for Gelato. After our Gelato dinner we made our way back to the apartment and had some cheese and crackers for our "real" dinner. It was a long day and no one had any problems going to sleep!