When  we were planning our trip, one of the things on George’s list was to see the Vatican Museum. It turned out that it was not open while we were in town because of the Easter celebrations. We were intending to move on this morning to Villa d’Este, but as it turned out it was open on the Monday National holiday and so was closed today (Tuesday). Change in plans – we decided to stay in town for the morning and do a guided tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica.

What a busy area around the Vatican – with 30 – 40,000 visitors each day. We found our tour guide and after heading through another security checkpoint (they are at every venue), we headed inside chock-a-block with all the other group tours. The tours use headsets so that you can hear your guide even though you may not be right up close. We started in the Vatican Museum and were introduced to room after room of sculptures, paintings and tapestries owned by the Vatican City and collected by successive Popes down through the ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found the Gallery of Maps most interesting. Dating back to the 1580s, there are 40 large frescoe panels each depicting the topography of a region in Italy including a depiction of the major city in each region. Our guide described it as the renaissance version of google maps. The ceiling in this 120m long gallery was particularly beautiful. We spent some time out in the courtyard before entering the Sistine Chapel so that she could explain what we were going to be seeing. They require silence in the chapel and no photos are allowed because of copyright issues. She told us quite a bit about Michelangelo and some of the special things about his ceiling paintings. We heard the story behind the nude characters in the original painting and then a period where the pope of the day charged a different painter with putting clothes on the characters (called the underwear painter) and another pope approved removing the clothes in a subsequent restoration. It really is an awesome sight and one could spend hours looking up at the paintings.

Before we started the tour, they warned us that the Vatican had indicated, just this morning, that the Basilica would be closed until 1pm because the Pope was leading a special mass. As it turned out, just as we were about to exit the Sistine Chapel, our guide indicated that she had just received word that the church was open. We spent about 45 minutes wandering around the church and then went downstairs to see the crypt where a number of previous Popes are buried.

We picked up our luggage from the hotel and headed out of Rome. Despite everything we were told and had read, driving in Rome really wasn’t that bad. With our GPS we were quite able to find our way around. Many of the roads don’t have street signs so you just have to guess as to where to turn sometimes. Siri always reroutes you when you make a wrong turn.

 

 

 

We decided to stop at Hadrian’s Villa on our way to Tirni. Hadrian was the emperor from 117 to 138 and had the villa built as an alternative to the emperor’s palace on the Pallatine Hill in Rome. It was used by successive emperors and then fell into disuse. Like most other abandoned sites around Rome, the valuable marble and statuary were removed and used in other buildings – maybe even St Peters. There were some 30 buildings on the property many of which are still in some state of preservation. It was quite interesting although in some ways it wasn’t too different from the sites and stories associated with the forum.

 

 

 

In my post yesterday I indicated that it had been a day of walking. While we were eating dinner tonight George looked up his step counter app on his iphone. Yesterday was 28,000 steps (21.1 km) and today was about 22,000 steps. No wonder my calf muscles are sore!