Rome day 3

Day 3 was our trip to Vatican City. We started with a tour of the Vatican Museum which contains many great works of art and sculptures as well as the Sistine Chapel.

This is one of the staircases in the museum. If the stairs are this amazing you can only imagine what can be seen within the walls.

This is the grand museum. It has a beautiful outdoor courtyard seen below.

My most favorite part of the museum was the hall of statues. I think we hit it at the perfect time of day because the lighting was beautiful and it made each one of the carvings come to life. The one below is Silenus with the child Dionysus. It was breathtaking. So rare to see a man and a baby sculptured this way together.

We saw many fabulous pieces of art but the most beautiful of all was the Sistine Chapel. It was different than what I was expecting when I first walked in. Maybe it is because it is filled with wall to wall people but it seemed smaller to me than I thought it would have. It was interesting though once we took a seat and pulled out our book that went over each section of the painting the room started to feel bigger and bigger the longer we sat.

As you can imagine this is another place that is IMPOSSIBLE to try and photograph. You actually are not supposed to take any pictures at all but everyone does (not sure if that makes it ok...but I did anyway).

The chapel was painted over a 4 year period by Michelangelo. It spans 5,900 square feet. What is most interesting was when Pope Julius II asked him to do it, he said no thank you and that he was a sculptor, not a painter. Amazing that a non-painter pulled this off, right?

I also found it interesting that the wall below, which is known as The Last Judgment, was painted some 23 years later by Michelangelo. Again, this is all something you really have to see to believe. It was beautiful.

Then we were off to St. Peter's Basillica.I'm not really quite sure what to even say about this church. Everything about it is massive. It can hold 60,000 worshipers and the church covers 6 acres!

The light pouring in from the upper windows was simply beautiful

This golden canopy was built over an altar and 23 feet under that is where they say the tomb of Peter is. Many archaeological studies have been done and they have every reason to believe that this is actually where Peter himself is buried. To give you an idea of size, this golden canopy just itself is 7 stories tall!

This is looking up from the canopy to the dome that we climbed to the very top of.

Below is a picture looking down into the church 1/2 way up our climb to the top of the dome. The words you see there completely surround the entire church. They are all done in tiny mosaics and each letter is 7 feet tall. Yup, like I said this place is massive. The words that encircle the church are every documented word that Jesus ever spoke to Peter in the bible. Pretty cool.

Before I get to our great hike up to the dome I have to tell you about this picture below. It is called Pieta. It was carved by Michelangelo at age 24. It is a sculpture of Mary cradling her crucified son in her lap. Shortly after it was completed Michelangelo over heard someone giving credit of the sculpture to another artist so later that night he went in and carved his name in the ribbon running down Mary's chest. This is now his only signed work and it is said that he later regretted his actions .

Then we were off to climb the great dome. You could pay to take an elevator up most of the way but I thought it would be fun to say we climbed every single step, so we did. I think it was close to 500 steps. Even if you take the elevator you have to do the last 320 alone in a tiny little staircase where the walls curve in towards you. Pretty claustrophobic but I'm glad we did it. We were the only ones who did not take the elevator but it was fun.

This is almost at the very top where it is so narrow that there is not even enough room for a handrails so you get to hang on to a rope hanging from the ceiling. Ahhhh, we made it. The view was spectacular, and my legs got their workout in for the day.
This is just outside of St. Peter's in the main square. You see those statues behind us, there are 140 of them, all 10 feet tall that surround this entire square.
That night we headed to the Pantheon which is just outside our hotel. This is the ceiling inside the Pantheon. The dome is 142 feet wide and 142 feet high exactly. The hole in the middle is 30 feet across and is it's only source of light. The 1,800 year-old-floor has holes in it and slants towards the edges to let the rainwater drain out. I think it would have been cool to have been in there when it was raining, but we had blue skies the entire trip...thank goodness!

Later that night we hit one last fountain, the Trevi. Probably the most famous but not my most favorite. The fountain itself was amazingly beautiful but it was the only one that was not put in the middle of a large piazza and therefor was very crowded. I guess there was one time I felt crowded in this trip, and this was it. There was no room to just sit back and enjoy it's beauty, but we did go see it on a Friday night with beautiful weather so that may be why it was so busy.

Legend has it that if you throw a coin into the fountain you will return to Rome. We threw in our coins and I can hope that the legend stays true. It is reported that some 3,000 euros are thrown in daily and then are retrieved to feed the poor.

Wow, what a day!