Vatican City

If someone wants me to use 1 word to describe the Vatican City, i would say 'ART'. It's staring at you everywhere you walk.
We went to Vatican Museum before visiting St Peter's basilica. The museum is wonderfully decorated by the glorious artists of the past: Michaelangelo, Raphael (and nope, no signs of Leonardo or Donatello).. It's really worth the 28E entrance fee. But somehow, after the visit to the Vatican museum, we developed a certain phobia to art museums and never entered a paying art gallery for the remaining of our trip :P

I was a little afraid the moment we entered the museum. Afraid of walking the wrong way/direction and ending up missing some sections, so i was debating whether to get the guidebook/map or even the audio guide to help us. Fortunately Dear reassured me and said 'just walk la'. OK, so 'just walk la' we did and it turned out that there was only 1 logical way around the whole museum.

Started off with this courtyard.. Nothing fascinating, but guess it offers some fresh air before you get 'drowned' by the arts.

Courtyard

The first section after the courtyard contains sculptures:


and more sculptures:


and even more sculptures (i gave up uploading the pics.)

Well of course art is not only 3D. They come in 2D pictures as well, just that they do so in different forms:

Woven Art:

Woven art..we picked this piece of Jesus ressurrecting without knowing (Was actually quite dark then)

and paintings:

The museum route was designed in such a way that the finale is at the Sistine Chapel. This is where the famous painting of Man and God by Michaelangelo is affixed on the roof of the Chapel. (You know the one which shows man lazily reaching out to God who is trying to stretch all he can to reach the idler?)

Thought they forbade phototaking but somehow this pic is on the net..

The whole of the Sistine chapel is a painting. Even the curtains on the walls were painted i.e. painting of curtains. From floor to roof and from end to end, it was a painting. Simply amazing. There were signs to forbid phototaking and 'lying on the floor' (most probably many are so awed by the ceiling art they were lying down for the most comfortable view), but it was so crowded inside that it's so difficult to stand still, let alone lie down lor..

After getting groggy from the ARTs, we made our way to the St Peter's basilica (St Peter's church). Apparently this was also the place St Peter's was crucified upside down. Dunno the whole story of him though. Just got a vague idea he was one of Jesus's disciples.
St Peter's square sits just outside the church and around the square lies the border between Rome (Italy) and the Vatican city. Well, you wouldn't feel you've crossed a country anyway. No custom officers, no causeway etc..

St Peter's square with the St Peter's church as the backdrop

Taken by a friendly tourist... Most probably he felt the Vatican border (those concrete stones on the ground) is more important then taking the church..

Walls of the church perimeter lined by numerous unidentical sculptures

The interior of the chapel was huge and it was hard to take a photo to give the impression of its size. Or rather, i still dun have the skill to take a photo to show the size of the chapel. But still, take my word for it, it's huge and impressive.

Throne of St Peter

Just 1 part of the interior of the massive church

After the walking, we finally came to the highlight of the day: climbing the dome of the church. It has supposedly 500+ steps to conquer without lift (have to pay 6E) or if you want to cut it down to about 300 steps: it will cost you another 5E for the life ride. Hmm, hope i got the prices correct.
But the climb was both vertiginous and claustrophobic.
Because it's winding (it's a dome ma..) and the stairway is pretty narrow. (1 man's width)

Narrow, narrow steps. Just like a bomb shelter stairway

Fortunately, the climb was rewarding as we get to see these scenic views from above.

Aerial view of St Peter's square

View of the rest of the Vatican city from the Dome. Is it a rich man's house or a whole country? (Boundary marked by trees)

And of course, what is a visit to the Vatican without seeing the legendary Swiss guards of the city? Apparently the only legion of Swiss guard left in the world (they used to work as mercenaries)


I yearned for a visit to the Vatican years before as i was so interested why the country was so small. But on reaching there, i just felt that it was part of Rome, cos there was nothing, nothing at all to remind me i'm visiting another country.
Nevertheless, i was glad we came here first before visiting Florence, cos we really saved a great deal of $$ by not visiting Florence's museums after seeing the Vatican's :)