Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 🚗 👟
We slept as late as we could, but we had to get moving for our Vatican tour. We were running late, so we ended up eating the mozzarella, prosciutto, bread, olive oil, and marinated artichokes that we bought a few days before. Luckily we had them on hand, because we didn’t get another chance to eat until dinner.
We ended up being able to get a taxi to the Vatican and showed up exactly on time. We checked in and joined the tour group of our tour guide, Giovani. He was an art historian, and really knew his stuff—it was fascinating hearing him talk about all the works in the Vatican (there are over 5 million).
We started in the Piazza della Pigna, where we got a full briefing on the Sistine Chapel. There, Giovani explained all the “Easter eggs” in the chapel, since he couldn’t talk much inside the chapel (it’s very crowded).
Then, we started to walk through the museum. It was overwhelming. There are literally hundreds of thousands of amazing ancient sculptures and paintings that would be the centerpiece of any other museum in the world. Eric especially liked seeing the Laocoon statue, which used to be on all his Latin textbooks in high school (and was revolutionary because it’s the first known sculpture to show emotion).
Here are some images we snapped while walking around.
We also saw “the torso,” which is maybe the most influential statue ever because of its anatomy and lifelike twisting position. Michaelangelo viewed himself as a “student of the torso” and many famous artists came to study it. It even heavily inspires Jesus’ famous position in The Last Judgment painting in the Sistine Chapel.
Even the floor of the museum was amazing. It was constructed of dozens of types of marble of every color—and they just let millions of people a year walk on it.
We also were surprised to find so many Egyptian artifacts in the Vatican! It was as if we were there just the other day (actually 2 days before).
The most notable part of the day was the hall of maps, mostly made in the 15th century of Italy. There are about 50 maps in the hall, and we were able to find Sarah’s ancestral city of Prata!
We went to another hallway of even more art. Lots of art!
Finally, it was on to the Sistine Chapel. We spent about 20 minutes in there just admiring the iconic artwork of Michelangelo and other Italian artists (it had much better clarity than the last time Eric was there 15 years ago—they removed much of the soot). No phones allowed, so no pictures from in there.
They led us out of the Sistine Chapel through the hallway where the pope usually walks (one of the benefits of the guided tour—the regular ticket doesn’t allow access here) into the St Peter’s Square, where we ended the tour.
From there, we went into the Basilica and walked around. We enjoyed seeing the Pieta, Michelangelo’s most famous statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. We couldn’t get close since some guy hit it with a hammer 50 years ago, but it was still amazing even from a distance.
It’s surprisingly hard to find the crypt, but we made it downstairs and saw the tomb of St Peter. We had plans to see the Capuchin Crypts, so we sort of sped through this part and headed to the exit. You’ve seen one crypt, you’ve seen them all (not really).
We wanted to send a few post cards and get a few gifts, so we quickly stopped in the Vatican post office and gift shop before heading out.
We messed up and didn’t realize it would be rush hour, so we couldn’t get a taxi (one guy said he’d take us for 47€, and it’s about a 40 minute walk… so we said no thanks).
We ended up getting there too late, so we had to miss the Capuchin Crypts (until tomorrow).
Aunt Nancy very graciously picked us up and drove us to the city center, where we got out and had a native Roman-guided walking tour (by Aunt Nancy of course). We saw the Pantheon at night, which was beautiful (but closed), and went through Piazza Novena, one of the most famous squares in Rome.
Sarah loved the ancient Roman architecture at every turn.
After that, we had dinner with Aunt Nancy and her friend Loretta (who gave us a tour of the embassy) at another one of Aunt Nancy’s favorite restaurants, Babin. The food there was amazing, and Sarah ordered the best thing on the menu—ravioli stuffed with bufala mozzarella and truffle cream. We also learned an important lesson about wine etiquette from Nancy, when the waiter poured us dinner wine before we had finished our champagne instead of waiting for the food to arrive.
It was extra late when we finished up there, so Aunt Nancy drove us back to Sean’s. It’s been really nice having her guide us around Rome!
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