Italy, Day 5, May 15, 2024

We were up early again this morning as we had another exciting day ahead.  We were heading to the Vatican! We left our apartment and walked.  It was a little under 30 minutes and we enjoyed being out and about in Rome.

 We arrived at our meeting spot, checked in with the tour company, met our the other couple that was doing the tour with us, and met our tour guide.  We had "skip the line" tickets, and our tour guide jokingly said, "Follow me to the skip-the-line line!"  Ha!  There was still a line but it moved very quickly and within less than 10 minutes we made it inside where we got our headsets. Even though it was just the 6 of us in the tour, the guide had us use headsets so we could hear him better because even though it was May (high season in Rome is June, July, and August) he said it had been extremely crowded at the museums and we could hear him much better with the headsets.

And he was correct!  It was so nice not to have to struggle hearing what he was saying and it was very crowded in there.  

Just as an aside:  The Vatican is essentially two parts - the Vatican Museums and St. Peter's Basillica.  Today we were visiting both as well as the crypts below St. Peters and the Sistine Chapel.

The Museums were fascinating.  They got their start in 1506 when Pope Julius II purchased a statue (Lacoon and His Sons)  from a vineyard owner at the recommendation of Michelangelo. And thus began the tradition of the Catholic Church obtaining beautiful artwork and sculptures and putting them on display for everyone to enjoy. There are lots of different museums and you can read about them here.

 

After our tour of the museums, we headed to the Sistine Chapel.  It was breathtaking and beautiful even though we were in there with a lot of other people.  No photography is allowed in the chapel which was a bummer. We were in there admiring the ceiling for about 15 minutes before we decided that our necks were sore from looking up and our guide led us out.  Fun fact:  In addition to not being able to take pictures, we also weren't allowed to speak in the chapel.  People would still talk but every now and then one of the employees would remind everyone to be silent.

 

After viewing the Sistine Chapel we headed into St. Peter's Basilica.  It was beautiful! There were multiple altars and each one was more stunning than the one before.  They were decorated with gorgeous mosaics that looked like paintings and cool statues.  My favorite was the iconic Pieta by Michelangelo.  Please click here for a list of all 25 altars with photos better than mine.  I struggled this whole trip to make my photos match up to the majesty that I was seeing everywhere.

 

We then headed to the grottos below the cathedral where 91 Popes are buried.  It was pretty cool to see the burial sites of so many Popes.  We were not lucky enough to get tickets to go below the grottos to the necropolis see where St. Peter is buried.  Only 225 tickets to that are released every day and you have to secure your tickets months in advance.  I tried though!  Maybe next trip....

We then we headed outside to St. Peter's Square.  It was Wednesday and there was a Papal mass earlier that morning and the square was empty except for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folding chairs still in rows. The square can hold up to 80,000 people - not all in chairs of course! After checking out the square we said goodbye to our tour guide and the nice couple from Georgia that was on the tour with us and headed to lunch!  We were famished.  The tour was supposed to take 3 hours but our tour guide loved to talk and spent a lot of time answering all of our questions so the tour ended up being 4 hours!

After lunch at Caffe Novecento, we headed back to the apartment for a quick nap.  Well, the kids took a nap, I took a shower.  After we were refreshed, we headed to the Trastavera neighborhood.  We had read a lot about this cool neighborhood and wanted to see it.  (It was nice but honestly no better than the neighborhood we were staying in. In my humble opinion.) 

 

On our way we stopped Rome's Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary, located among the ruins of the Largo Argentina archaeological area.  These ruins are where Julius Cesear was killed by Brutus (among others) in 44BC.  That's the cool thing about Rome....you are just walking along a normal city street and then boom - there are some ancient ruins over 2000 years old and you can actually look at them!  And there are random cats roaming around now because it's become a cat sanctuary. Apparently when they were excavating the site in 1929 stray cats made their home there and have been there ever since.

 

We walked around a while and had apertivo (we were pros by now at grabbing a pre-dinner drink and snack) and then had dinner at La Canonica.  We wanted to eat at Tonnarello but the line was wrapped around the building and down the street so we at at La Canonica which was not good at all.  The only reason they were packed is because they were getting the people like us who didn't want to wait in the line for Tonnarello.  It was the only less-than-delicious meal we got in Rome.  But we were still eating in Rome so honestly, it wasn't all that bad.  :) 

 

After dinner we walked around Trastevere more and enjoyed the beautiful nighttime views of Rome  and then headed back to our apartment.  It was another long but absolutely wonderful day!

Here are more of my subpar photos.  They don't ever show how wonderful everything we saw truly is.  

Santa Maria Church

Castle Santa Angela and the Tiber River

Tents and food trucks and long lines!  We must be at the Vatican!  This is the old entrance.  The new entrance is out of sight in this picture but it's to the left

The dome  of St. Peter's Basillica

Inside Vatican City!  This is the Cortile Della Pigna (Court of the Pinecone)  Basically a courtyard we went through to get into the museums.

More views in the courtyard

Gold Sphere in the courtyard. You can spin it!

This is the Gallery of Statues and the Hall of Busts

Our tour guide!

View of Rome from the Vatican Museums

Laocoon and His Sons. This statue was excavated in Rome in 1506 and has been on display at the Vatican ever since.

Statue of Meleager inside the Gallery of the Candelabra

Ceiling inside the Hall of the Muses

Statues inside the Hall of the Muses

Even the floors are works of art!

My neck was tired after the tour.  All the ceilings are masterpieces!

The Hall of Tapestries.  These were gorgeous and so intricate

More tapestries.

This is the sweet couple from Georgia that was on the tour with us. 

More ornate ceilings.

The Gallery of Maps. Each map is a large scale fresco and depicts regions of Italy as if they were being viewed from Rome. The gallary is made up of 40 panels which were completed in the 1580s.

Had to take a picture of the Amalfi Coast.

Another ceiling!

This fresco is called The School of Athens and was painted byRaphael between 1509-1511.  It depicts ancient philosphers, mathematician, and scientists.  Plato and ARistotle are in the center and others represented are Socrates, Phythagoras, Archimedies to name a few.  And Rapheal painted da Vinci and Micelandgelo in the painting as Plato and Heraclitus.  Raphael also included a self portrait beside Ptolemy.  He's the only one looking straight at the viewer. This is Raphaeil's best known work and it was stunning in person.  We spent a lot of time looking at this one.

The woman in white (according to Raphael) is  Hypatia of Alexandria.  She was a professor of philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy at the University of Alexandria.  Raphael regarded her as "one of the greatest thinkers ever."  I love that!  Also, I think this woman resembles my sweet Sarah a lot!

There's always some type of renovation and restoration going on inside the Vatican Museums

This is Christ in the Painter by Marc Chagall painted in 1951. The Vatican has a large collection of modern art as well.

This is Angelic Landscape by Salvador Dali

The Crucifixion also by Salvador Dali

The Trinity by SalvadoreDali

St. Peter's Square

An ancient Egyptian obelisk built by Pharaoh Menacares 1,585 years before Christ.  It was brought to Rome by Emperor Caligula in 37 BC and placed in the circus he had built.  The circus was where St. Peter and many other Christians were martyred.  So it's cool (and a little macabre) to think that this obelisk was was a witness to St. Peter's death.  In 1586 the obelisk was moved to St. Peter's Square.

St. Peter's!

Inside St. Peter's Basillica

It was breathtaking inside and it was HUGE

I was so excited to see Michelangelo's Pieta in person. Of course, it was behind glass but it was stunning.

There are multiple chapels and altars inside the Basillica. This is the Altar of St. Sebastian. Pope John Paul II is buried under the altar.  He was originally buried in the grotos but was moved here when they started the process of canonization because so many pilgrims wanted to pray in front of his tomb and ask for his intercession.

Behind Peter is the Tomb of Pope Alexander VII which was designed and partially built by Italian artist Bernini

The Altar of the Sacred Heart.  This giant painting is actually a mosaic.

This is the floor above St. Peter's Tomb.  St. Peter is buried under the high altar (which was under renovation so I don't have any good pictures of the beautiful altar.  This picture was taken in the grottos where the tombs of the popes are.  But St. Peter is buried underneath here.

Pope Benedict

The Holy Door at St. Peter's Basilica.  It's only opened during Jubilee years.  Next year is a Jubilee year and it will be opened. 

He Swiss Guard

We finally made it to lunch.  It was a late one but it was delicious.  We at at Cafe Novacento. I snapped this picture because this scene just looked so Italian. :)

Meatballs and a salad. I ate every bite of this!

This is the tiny little doorway into our apartment building.

Rome's Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary, located among the ruins of the Largo Argentina archaeological area

Can you spot a cat?

The Tiber River

Apertivo time! Our favorite time of the day. This was at Ristorante Sabatini in Trastevere

Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere

Every church you step foot into in Rome is a masterpiece!

Dinner at Ristorante La Canonica in Trastevere

Me and my love.  All of the restaurants had outdoor seating which I absolutely loved.  It was like dinner and a show just watching everyone come and go up and down the street. 

Castel Sant'Angelo in the evening

St. Peter's Dome in the distance

And that was another full day in Rome!  We could have spent two days in the Vatican Museums and still felt like we didn't see it all.  There is so much art and history 4 hours just didn't do it justice.  I would love to go back and just it explore it all again.  Maybe one day!