We’ll use hotel’s free transfer to Vatican City for going there, where
we’ll spend the entire day exploring the architecture and art in there.
The spots marked at map are:
1- St. Peter's Square
2- St. Peter's Basilica
3- Excavations Office
4- Vatican Museums
After
We’re at 9 AM in hotel desk with our fast broken
and ready to take the hotel’s van making the transfer to Vatican City.
A family with a girl is coming with us. When I ask to our driver about
the point for the return trip he answers me it is in Cavour Square,
which we know because yesterday we were there.
The van leaves us in the wall bordering the
smallest state in the world and, as we’re going down to St. Peter’s
Square, the family is taking the opposite way following the sign
pointing to Vatican Museums. I didn’t know their entrance was in the
outside.
We pass security checks and get St. Peter’s Square
by 9:45 AM.
Its circled part is huge, bordered by Bernini’s
colonnade, from which we’re coming in. The rectangular part between the
circle and the basilica is fenced as it is all set with chairs for an
event, which we guess will have something to do with Christmas. I’m
using the big and nice tree in the middle of the square, beside the
obelisk, as a hint.
We can see different entrances for the basilica, with short
lines for each of them, we choose one which finally takes us to a
hallway in basilica’s lateral where the Popes tombs are exposed, one
after the other. There are some signs forbidding the use of cameras
but, as everybody here is using them, we do it too.
The crowded tomb results to be John Paul
II’s.
When we’ve completed the itinerary for the tombs we finally
get into the magnificent basilica. St. Peter’s baldachin is taking a
relevant role in the middle of it but looking at any other side one
realizes is in an art museum: the walls of the building are full of
monuments for old Popes and religious motifs. The most of them are
sculptures made in marble, as famous Michelangelo’s “Pietà”.
We explore all basilica’s corners, full of treasures, until
10 minutes to 11 AM. AT 11:15 AM we have scheduled a tour for
necropolis and St. Peter tomb excavations and the email states we must
be at Excavations Office 10 minutes before.
Before leaving, we stop to observe a big box ready
for being set to display when the clothes covering it will be removed.
We manage to see the contents, which results to be the biggest nativity
scene I’ve ever seen. A sign says it will be displayed on December 24th.
Once outside, we ask to a Swiss guard for the
Excavations office but he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, so we
follow that side of the basilica looking for someone else to ask.
Instead, we find a door with the sign “Ufficio Scavi” besides. I
identify the word “scavi” from the email they’ve sent to me and, yes,
it is where we were looking for. Today is our lucky day!
We’ve got a couple of tickets like the one above
in exchange of the 10€ per person we knew we should pay for this tour.
At 11:15 AM a guide comes and takes the small group we’re part of with
her to some stairs going down to the dark from somewhere in the
basilica.
Down, we’re in a lower level and also lower
temperature. It is an entire city down there! Taking photos or videos
is not allowed, so I take this quick one from one of the courtyards in
the necropolis when everybody was out of there. There are streets with
bricked walls and floor. It could be us walking by the streets of an
ancient city out there by night if we could not see the ceiling, which
is eating the top of most of the walls.
This visit is very interesting and is entirely
happening beneath basilica’s ground. I’ve even manage to see the
baldachin through an air vent in the ceiling in our way to St. Peter’s
tomb. Actually, the tomb is under it. It is a beautiful room we already
saw between the Pope’s tombs, but now we’re going to see what is behind
what is shown as tomb for the first Pope in history. In an area
protected with glasses we can see excavations in the soil, part of a
human jaw and another bone identified as belonged to this historical
figure, based in some tests and graffiti carved roughly in the place.
We go up to a narrow pass way full of statues
which is driving us to the Popes tombs itinerary, where our guide
leaves us, finishing this tour in less than one hour. We complete the
route again to go outside.
We leave Vatican City to go back to Rome, but
following the wall and the same way the family of this morning and soon
we reach the entrance to Vatican Museums. We can see a small nativity
scene here too. We get our tickets after paying 14€ each for them.
We can see why this place is called “museums” as
actually there are a lot of them here. There is a museum of coins,
stamps, maps, carriages, archeological Egyptian, archaeological
Etruscan, sacred art, a Picture Gallery, etc… and all this besides the
halls and rooms where we can find the Rooms of Raphael or the Sistine
Chapel.
No stress. We just follow the way to the rooms
which make us going through long halls full of sculptures or ancient
artifacts. We pass through one hall full of tapestries and carpets,
another full of big painted maps. The ceiling of this palace are
covered with beautiful paintings too.
When we’re done with the long halls we start going
room after room, all full of wall paintings and statues. When we come
into the Raphael Rooms I spare some time to admire the “School of
Athens” for a while. I didn’t know it was that big.
It is just a few minutes later when we find
ourselves inside Sistine Chapel. The room is filled with pews to seat
and look around. It is not looking as a chapel at all, but a common
rectangular room with a very high ceiling and flat walls. There is
nothing special on it but for the colorful paintings covering every
inch of walls and ceiling. And this is a big BUT here, and a lot of
beautiful painting also. So much that I feel like one could spend the
entire day here and still skip a lot of the details Michelangelo put in
here.
It is a pity photos and videos are not allowed
precisely on this room. There are even some guards looking after
avoiding every attempt of a tourist for getting an image from here.
That’s the reason the quality of the video I manage to take should be
better, but it is the unique sample of this wonder I could bring.
With the famous chapel the itinerary ends and we
reach a
common area with accesses to the different museums. There is also a
buffet restaurant and toilets. We use both of them. The food and drinks
taken are 7€ and 9€, so we both can lunch here by 16€. We can rest here
too. We’ve preferred to be inside, but it seems the most popular option
is taking some place outside, in the gardens.
From all the rest of museums we spend the
afternoon first
in the archeological ones, watching Egyptian mummies and statues of
gods, and then the big Etruscan sculptures. I’m surprised by the
collection of stone bathtubs.
We finish our visit with the Picture Gallery,
tired, and
take the way to the exit around 5 PM. We leave the place through he
beautiful spiral staircase by Giuseppe Momo.
We walk by Roman streets to North, where we know “Ottaviano”
metro station is, as we already used it yesterday. In our way, we do
some shopping and take chocolate with pastries.
It’s past 8 PMK when we reach the hotel with our
bodies claiming for a well-deserved rest.
