Vatican Express - Don't leave Rome without it!

I started the trip with fortunate timing in that the flight to Rome was scheduled to land around 8 o'clock in the morning. In order to more quickly adjust to local time, I had stayed up the previous 24 hours before leaving Tampa and kept awake all through the domestic portion of the trip. After taking off, we were quickly served dinner, which was nice, after which I passed out before they picked up the trays and didn't stir until just before landing, missing breakfast. Perfect timing. This was all greatly aided by the foam ear plugs that I was finally smart enough to bring on a trip, especially after previous hostel snoring incidents. It was a decent feeling to wake up preparing to start the new experience.

In most cities, my routine seems to be to arrive, to get horribly lost, to return to the starting point, and eventually Forest Gump my away along until I find what I needed. the GPS was a great aid, but when the hostels have no signs in front of the building to expose their inner secrets (e.g. location) to the world, it can be easy to miss a few things. Fortunately my hostel was only 10 minutes walk from the station. I buzzed in and was told to head up to the 4th floor, which in Europe means to go up 5 flights of stairs since their 1st floor is ou 2nd story/floor. There was an elevator, however it required a couple of 5 cent euro coins with all I had consisting of just 50 or 20 euro notes, so up the stairs I went carrying everything I owned on this continent.

I had been nervous all week when looking at the weather reports since the indications were that it would rain much of my first trip, however as in almost all of my other trips, I simply lucked out in that for the two weeks I was in-country, it never rained. I was afraid that the first day would be full of post-card pics of me being soaked by the rain. I already anticipated my first pictures would be of the Trinita dei Monti (wet Spanish Steps), the Piazza del Popolo (large People's square, also wet), Palazzo di Glustizia (very unique, wet architecture) which was next to the Castel Sant' Angelo (fortress of massive, wet proportions) beside the Ponte Sant' Angelo (wonderfully wet bridge lined with sculptures), and wet city of God, The Holy See. However, all I experienced was sunshine and decent temperatures.

I checked into the Sandy Hostel, grabbed a touristy map, and then headed for the metro and one to the Vatican City. After grabbing my first real bite of the morning at a pizzeria just a few feet from the outer Vatican walls, I headed for the museum entrance. The Vatican is a place that cannot be rushed. This is partly because it is physically impossible to do anything but stand in a crowd or line up, but mainly because there is so much to take in. The Vatican museum is more then just the Capella Sistina (as every wall is filled with murals, sculptures watch over each room, and the hallways are covered with intricate ceiling art), but they never let you forget that Michelangelo's ceiling is the main event. So many of the paintings, sculptures, and art works lining the wall could probably be a showcase of themselves at most museums throughout the world, so it can be easy to be overwhelmed. After an 90 minutes of moving through the museum and following the Capella Sistina signs, I seemed to walk through a fairly nondescript hallway and door into the chapel itself. The room was huge. I didn't even care that my neck ached beyond pain killers; the work was spectacular. I stayed in this room for probably over an hour and a half just trying to take it all in. I did get amused at times by all the covert camera work as everyone turned into spys as the security guards would break the imposed silence by the occasional hand clap and "No foto" exclamation when someone's flash would inadvertently go off. One thing that made the excursion more enjoyable was a couple of audio guides that I downloaded into my iPod Touch before leaving home. Everyone is familiar with the rented audioguides that people can get at the museums, but increasingly more free guides are being made freely available on the Internet. I really liked the Rick Steves Italy audioguides as they were pretty well laid out and provide info in a format I liked. I also found another set of audio guides, ItalyGuides.it, that were nice to have as a supplement as well.

The Vatican part two was in the afternoon. Every Wednesday the Pope addresses the crowd in St. Peter's Square, so the museum was light on visitors during this time. When I was finished, I found the square to be relatively empty as everyone had already left, so the wait to get into St. Peter's Basilica was very short. I have never been much of a church goer in the past, but found it very easy to get lost in the Cathedral's force of importance. You couldn't help but feel how powerful St. Peter's Basilica was. This visit involved over another hour of slow browsing and taking it all in, or at least making my best attempts to do so. There were some distance marks in the floor throughout that showed the where the next largest churches in the world would have fit. It is impossible to effectively describe how immense this place was. Even the most wide-angle, 10mm, setting on my camera lens from the opposite end of the church could barely take it all in. Unfortunately, the access to the dome shut down for the day before I finally found its location, but that really couldn't distract the overall grandeur of this place. I headed back into the square and sat by the fountain and central obelisk for a while just enjoying the ambiance. I loved looking at the Bernini columns in the Piazza San Pietro. There was one spot where the viewer would see every column lined up in perfect rows. to me they looked like stone sequoias on sentry duty to protects and support this open holy space. I came across a red stone, almost randomly, on the northwest section of the square that I later learned was a mark for the spot where Pope John Paul II was shot. Overall, I spent 5 hours at the Vatican with at least two of those in the Capella Sistina. It was well worth the time. Even if one is not Catholic, you cannot help but feel humbled and very small by being in a place like this.