Because we were going to Italy around Christmas, we wanted to visit Vatican City as close to Christmas as possible. That turned out to be Sunday the 27th, which also happened to be a free entrance day for the Vatican Museum. <geek>cool the Vatican has a .va domain</geek>
We expected the the line-up to be pretty crazy so we planned on getting there early. That plan, coupled with jet lag (Italy is 6 hours ahead) and walking around the previous night seemed like it might be a disaster, but we actually did pretty well and got into line around 7:45 or so. I think we ended up getting in around 9:30. By the time we left, the line stretched almost INTO Saint Peter’s Square!
To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the museum; I don’t know the significance of the artifacts or the imagery. I wanted to go to the museum because of the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo’s work within it. But after seeing it, I was underwhelmed. Perhaps I just don’t know how to appreciate Renaissance art.
After a quick lunch, we visited Saint Peter’s Square and St Peter’s Basilica (is there a reason one is Saint and the other is St?). There was a huge lineup that stretched around half the square oval to get into the Basilica but fortunately it moved pretty quickly. For me the Basilica was the highlight of the Vatican City. Did you know you can fit the entire Statue of Liberty or the space shuttle (with booster rockets) within the Basilica’s dome? That’s more striking than saying that the Basilica is 45 stories tall.
Indeed, once you’re inside, you feel tiny. Especially when there are thousands of tourists around but there is still a huge amount of emptiness above you. The Basilica could be one of the caverns in Middle-Earth.
It is quite impressive that a structure of this size was built in the 1600s and still immaculately maintained today! It is also quite nice to see a church with marble and other colours after seeing so many monochromatic Gothic churches in France.
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