Wednesday 24 December 2014

Italy: The Vatican


We booked tickets for the Vatican museum online and, after striding purposefully for the best part of an hour to get there, I just about made it to the booth in time to pick them up. It was definitely worth seeing, but it's a bit overwhelming. There's just so much art crammed into the space. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know the Catholic Church claims they are saving it so that it is always available for everybody to see. Noble.





My favourite bit was definitely the maps room.




I also liked the tapestries; and I spent quite a lot of time taking pictures of various details of the building. I felt quite inspired by it all, really. These tapestries are centuries old.




The Sistine Chapel was amazing but full of selfish tourists, taking pictures and chattering with their friends despite regular announcements instructing them not to. A woman tried to push me off a bench, claiming she was saving the eat for her boyfriend. Still, once I got the headset working for the audio tour, I managed to tune them all out to listen to the description of the pictures.


St Peter's was pretty impressive, too. Just a massive, massive space. We were too late to get the lift to the top for the views, so that will go on the list for next time, too.



After St Peter's we walked across the bridge and found somewhere nice to eat dinner. I was charged a small fortune for an off-menu dish but it was really good food. We had fried antipasti in the Rome style, including courgette flowers and a chicken goujon that looked a lot like Italy.



A great day, day 2.

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