Il Vaticano & St. Peter's

Okay, so I’m not catholic, but I might think about converting.. On Tuesday (yes, I know...I'm a couple of days behind), we had a Vatican tour that included the Sistine Chapel, the Basilica and the Vatican Museum. By the end of the day, I was ready to Hail Mary! What a beautiful place. I mean, not just that it’s a church and all, but the sheer genius of its designers and creators is unbelievable. We started off walking though the museums, which, I wasn’t really all that excited about. I mean, you’re there, why not just go to the Sistine Chapel and end the suspense, right? But the museum is wonderful, collected for a special purpose, full of amazing art and architecture and really beautiful. Take a fan if you come in the summer...it’s not all air conditioned. It really wasn’t that bad. You kind of forget that you’re sweating like a whore in church and begin to look at the wondrous collection of art...stuff from early on, political stuff, pagan stuff, roman and Greek stuff, renaissance stuff...it’s truly a fabulous collection...and not always a public collection...it was collected for the Church of Rome for a long time, before being available to the rest of us poor slobs. Does this outfit make me look hot? (And I mean that in a OMG it's 100 degrees and I'm standing in the middle of a million square miles of concrete kind of way-hot.)

So the museum tour, which includes amazing tapestries, as well as, Rafael’s apartments, several of the Borga rooms, etc. is worth the trip and, with a sort of crescendo, leads to the Sistine Chapel.

Remember when we went to New Zealand and saw Milford sound? I sort of made a conscious decision not to use the word “awesome” in daily speak. Well, I’m still not using it, because the Sistine Chapel is beyond words. However, “Shhhhh,” seemed to be the favorite word of the docents...I don’t understand what’s so hard about that word. They’d shush the crowd and within 2 or 3 seconds the roar would regain its strength. A couple of seconds later, a “Shussh” again. Repeated over and over for the 15 or so minutes we were there. I mean, come on. If the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is destroyed over time from the humidity and breath of the 25,000 or so visitors each month, then, it’s gone. FOREVER. Idiots. Shut the hell up and look, just look, at the beautiful art surrounding you. Total idiots.

Like the Mona Lisa, the Chapel is much smaller than you expect. But St. Peter’s is the largest church in the world. It’s...it’s...it’s the King Kong of churches. St. Patrick’s in New York fits inside of it almost three times. There are letters around the base inside the dome that are seven feet high. There’s a mosaic of somebody, poised with a quill. The feather of the pen is as long as I am tall. I caught myself saying, “Jesus!” a couple of times. I bet the nuns catch themselves saying it, too! I know in this picture it really doesn't look that big, but click on it and look closely at how small all those people are up on the steps. Trust me on this one. It's a big church.

St. Peter’s square also is really big. Not sure why they call it a square... it’s more oval or key-shaped, I think. Bernini designed it and the coolest thing about it, other than the fountains pouring out spring water so you can fill up your water bottle at the Vatican (yes, Jon, I’m bringing you back some) is that there are something like 284 columns surrounding the space. They are four deep, offset from one another, so it looks more like a random forest, rather than rows. But there is one place on either side of the Egyptian obelisk that dominates the square's center where you can stand, and the columns line up perfectly...so that you only see the first one in the row on that side. It’s very, very cool, considering he didn't have a computer to figure it out for him.

We finally made our way back out to the Vatican wall, after some tourist-y shopping (Wally, I’m still looking for a pope mobile for you...although I think we were probably a little close to the Vatican to find something like that) and found a Pizzeria for lunch.

We had our first taste of Margherita pizza...you know: very thin crust, sauce, cheese and fresh basil. I may never make pizza at home again.

We hiked back toward Piazza Navona, where we finally gave in and caught a cab back to the hotel for a well deserved nap. Bottom line...Vatican City, its museums, its history and just the sense of the devout that comes from being there...awesome! And, no, the Pope wasn’t home.