The Wacky World of a Lazy Pig (AKA Simon)

Eurotrip Day 16 - The Vatican is Ginormous and the Museum seems even larger.

This was one of the days I was looking forward to the ENTIRE trip. It is like visiting the holy land and being in a Holy palace. Today was the VATICAN. It was dedicated for the Vatican and the Vatican only.

Today, we were woken up by the Holland chicks as they left. They were leaving as quiet as possible but I could still hear them. We said our final goodbyes and left. I was basically awake for the rest of the time just waiting for a good time to get up and get ready for one of the major highlights of the trip. It is actually quite weird though, because no matter where you go in Rome, you can always see the Vatican from afar. St. Peter's Basillica is always in clear sight, but at the same time, we never really passed by.

Like every other morning, we washed up and quickly ran out to the nearby PAM grocery store to pick up some bread, meat and some drinks. I would actually use my swiss knife for the first time today. Anyway, seeing that most people don't really have cars in Rome, we were prepared to meet the worst at the subway station. Funny enough, the entrance to the subways were not full at all. Seemed like everyone had their own passes. We would see everyone pass by and some one look over noticing that we were tourists. The weirdest gang of toursists to be exact. After we got our tickets, we ran down to the stop and BAM!! We were hit by a huge wall of people. Yes, there was no crowd on the top, but there was a huge crowd of people all packed together like it was world youth day or the pope was appearing. Turns out this is how it always was.

There was a shocking feeling when I got a good look at the exterior of the subway cars because each and every car had been spray painted with graffiti. And to think the the transit company didn't bother to clean it up also came at a surprise. Though it didn't actually affect ther performance of the subway, I would say it seemed to degrade the quality of the service. We would eventually find a little bit of room in the crowd to squeeze into a car, but it was so packed that we could barely move. I was afraid that someone would steal something from my backpack so I took it off and placed it between my feet. As the doors of the subway closed, it seemed to being a cloud of sweat stench throughout the car. All of the sudden, it seemed like we were in a sauna that primarly smelt like sweat. GROSS!!! The only thing I really liked about the subway was that it told us which side of the car to get off at each station beforehand so we wouldn't be confused when we arrived.

The ride was quite long, but it was well worth it as it cut and extra 40 minutes of travelling had we gone by foot. There was no actual vatican stop so we got off at Octavian station I believe which is the closest station to the Vatican Museum. Our first stop was the museum. And though we had already had enough of museums and learned that it was impossible and futile to try to suck in everything, we still wanted to see it. We were lost the second we came out of the subway station as our map had not indicated really where to go. We wandered around the find some signs on buildings only to finally find the Vatican walls. The walls were quite tall, but I could eailsy toss a grenade over with quite a lot of space to spare. We followed the wall the entire way until we saw some gates and doors. We had found the Vatican Museum and an old friend, the line up.

Now this wasn't your typical lineup. From the front entrance, we could see the corner of the next portion of the wall. The line couldn' be that long especially because it was really early in the morning. We started walking and turned the corner only to find a line up as far as the eye could see. It seemed as if there was no end. The line went, once again, to the next corner of the wall so we headed for that direction. The line wasn't really moving fast at all too so we were already getting worried. Roger was the first to say something. "I don't think we should wait for this line. It looks like it could atleast 1 hour of our time." I didn't think it was that bad, until we turned the next corner. HOLY CRAP! There seriously must have been no end, because for the third time, we could see the line extend all the way to the next corner of the Vatican wall. It was almost confirmed in my head now that we would not waste our time here. When turned this last corner, we finally found the end of the line. The end of the line had extended from the Vatican museum all the way to the official entrance into the Vatican. And for those who know where they are located, you would be amazed at how people could stand waiting so long just to get in.

Steve didnt' seem to want to give up and started lining up. I did want to see how fast the line would be moving now so I joined as well. Our progress after 10 minutes was around 20 steps foward. I think a turtle would have been faster than us. Our patience was starting to run out until we were introduced to a person called Jason that was claiming that he did free tours of the vatican. Roger was the first to say yes for it. I was very skeptical at first because I wouldn't believe people would do free tours. How would they make money right? He told us that he does this for a living, giving free tours to avoid the huge line ups for the museum. The tours was for the Vatican and not the Museum. The tour is free because they have no way of advertising in papers and other mediums. We would eventually give in and go with the group that Jason had gathered. And before I go further, it was well worth it to do this tour.

Jason was definitely experienced and knew his stuff. He talked about the history of the Vatican, the people in the Vatican, the meanings of statues and structure of the buildings. Jason first led us to the entrance of the Vatican and had us stand there as he told use about the statues all around the outer rim of St Peter's Square. These statues are the statues of saints in the Catholic faith, probably leaving out some more recent ones (I am not sure). Jason pointed out the room in which the Pope stats in, 3rd from the top right of the buliding. Once a week, he would do a blessing from there or from the balcony at St. Peter's Basillica. The final interesting that he gave us before we passed security was that the bullet that was taken out of Pope John Paul II was taken and placed on the portrait of Our Lady and Jesus that is between the Basillica and the Papal residence.

A few steps from the security was a doorway guarded by the Swiss Guard, the Pope's personal guards. Jason asked everyone why the Pope in the old times had chosen the Swiss to be body guards. Many people believed they were chosen because Switzerland was almost always a neutral nation, but that was not the correct answer. The Swiss were chosen simply because they were the best mercenaries. The requirements for becoming a swiss guard are that you have to be between 19-30 years of age, Catholic, Unmarried, served in the Swiss military, atleast 5'9" tall and have good appearance. The good appearance basically meaning good looking was the target of a joke. Who in the vatican actually determined which candidate was good looking? The nuns?

As we made our way close and closer to the Basillica, my heart started to beat louder and harder. It was quite an amazing feeling. The front of the Basillica had large steps and two large statues of St. Paul (on the right) and St. Peter (on the left). The inside was the biggest I had ever seen. The ceiling was coated in Gold and every inch of the Basillica was decorated. Only pictures can really describe this place. My camera was not almost pushed to the limit with the amount of shots that I was taking.

Because there were SOOOOO many people inside and other tour groups wandering on the inside, all the tall people (including me) in our free tour was given a radio headset. This allowed Jason to speak from afar and still be heard clearly through the radio. When I received mine, it didn't seem to work. I felt sooooo gipped as I could not hear jason At all. After walking inthe the actual Basillica, I couldn't take it anymore and started fidgeting around and looking for buttons to press on the device. All of a sudden, it started working. The original problem was that the radio channel was set to a different channel that Jason was using. Thank goodness because I would missed the first big thing in the basillica, the Pieta by Michaelangelo. I had seen pictures of the sculpture in many religious stores or text books but had no idea that it still existed and was in the Vatican. The sculpture was quite far away but I managed to take some alright pictures. The glass placed in front of it did make it difficult for pictures but I am happy that I still got a few.

If there is one thing that Jason said that was definitely true was that everything was huge. No matter how small the looked from afar, if up close, they would most definitely be larger than me. The dome of michaelangelo was above the main center altar of the basillica. From the bottom, it didn't seem very tall at all and looked tiny. But turns out, even the feather pen being held by one of the saints in the painting was atleast 7-8 feet tall. The statue of liberty could fit under the dome and still have room to move around. It was THAT BIG. The altar was black, tall and was build right behind a set of stairs that led down into the crypt. Now, according to books, St. Peter's Body should be placed directly under the altar, but it really isn't. It s under the altar, but in the deeper crypts that the public cannot access.

Jason led us around describing a lot of the major statues and paintings. The paintings, in actual fact, were not paintings at all. They are replicas of the original paintings made in glass to prevent deterioration due to flash photography. I of course took the opportunity to take a few snaps before we left. The last thing Jason showed us was Pope John Paul II's crest close to the front entrance. It was blue in colour and basically was dedicated to Our Lady. The free tour was over quite quickly, but just before he finished and let us go away, he told us that he would be giving a tour of the Vatican Museum in the afternoon at around 2pm. This would cost 20 euros plus the price for getting into the museum. Seeing that we didn't know what to expect from the museum and would probably waste time just trying to understand things, we all decided that it would be a good idea to go for it.

Before we went on, we left the Basillica and sat out on the side of St' Peter's Square for lunch. Lunch was immediately followed by another visit to the basillica, this time, free time. Roger and Steve agreed that we should all go on our own to explore and really enjoy the basillica. I went off to check all the rooms, statues, sculptures, EVERYTHING. I found a very private room for praying and said my prayers and thanks to God. I wish I was there again. We were to meet up at around 1:30 at one of the fountains, but because I was praying and just going crazy with pictures, I was out late. I walked to the fountain and didn't see either Roger, Steve or anyone else from the free tour that was interested in the museum tour. I was starting to get worried that they had already gone in and left me, because that would really suck. I walked around the Square looking for Roger and Steve but no luck. After some time, I heard Steve scream. At that moment, I turned to see Roger and Steve sitting on a corner that was barely visible fromthe fountain. They were playing tricks on me again. sigh.. When will that end.

By the time we started lining up, the wait had decreased to less than 10 minutes. This makes a lot of sense since, according to Jason, if we were to spend just 1 minute on every item in the vatican museum we would be there for 6 years. So since the Museum closes at around 5pm everyday, going in at around 2pm is definitely not as worth it. But then again, we had Jason our tour guide to give us the highlights and information that we would have missed anyway.

Before we actually entered the Museum, we sat around a large court yard listening to Jason giving us a pre-museum info session. Here, he told us that it was imperative that he highlighted the art in the Sistine chapel before we enter because once we enter the Sistine Chapel, any talking above regular sound level is forbidden. So we sat at the stairs and listened to Jason talk about the great works of Michaelangelo. It was only at this point when I learned that a lot of famous religious paintings or pictures I have seen all of my life had basically originated from the Vatican. The creation, done by Michaelangelo, filled the entire ceiling of the Sisten Chapel. It is quite hard to believe. Jason also discussed "The Final Judgement" painting, also done by Michaelangelo. A funny fact that he pointed out was how the women were painted in the paintings. Because Michaelangelo didn't really have a good model of a women at the time, he painted all the women with male-like figure of course filling in the correct external differences.

From here on, we walked through the Vatican Museum. There is no way I could remember everything from here, but all I can say is that it was just amazing. There were hallways upon hallways full of sculptures, paintings, artifacts and tapestries. Another funny fact highlighted by both Jason and the "Angels & Demons" book was that almost all the sculptures of naked males had their penis broken off by a former pope. The point was to eliminate any sexual lust or things of that matter away from the clergy (priests) and nuns.

By the time we had gotten to the Sistince chapel, time was already running out. But all I could do was stand there and look upwards towards the ceiling. There really isn't much I could say to really describe the feeling that came over me as I saw each thing in the Sistine Chapel. This feeling is very similar to the experience of walking into the Vatican and St Peter's Bascillica. And while I was standing there, Roger and Steve basically went on their own. From then on, they were no where to be seen. The tour group was gathering up to exit, but I couldn't find Roger or Steve there. I walked around all over the chapel looking for them but still no where to be seen. Jason brought the group to one of the two exit doors (the correct one). I followed Jason for 5-10 minutes until I realized that if Roger and Steve had gone this way, we would have bumped into them. At this moment, I knew that it would be better to abandon the group to find the guys before we all got lost in the vatican. I ran out and went to the other exit i nthe Sistine chapel. I basically kept walking and walking until I ran in to Steve. He was looking at things as he normally does. The one missing was Roger though. He was no where near to us or Steve. Steve assumed that he had already gone out. I didn't have the time to enjoy the rest of the Museum. The security asked everyone to leave the museum as it was closing. I stopped to purchase some presents for my family and Christine's family.

We did find Roger eventually. He had already left. I don't blame him because he was looking for us as well. Too bad we couldn't spend more time in there though. But since we really didn't have a long time to really explore the Vatican, we decided to go through it again and into St. Peter's Bascillica. This time, as we passed through security, the guards found something int Steve's waste bag, his pockey knife. Oh they didn't like this one bit and told him that they had to take it and confiscate it. Steve on the other hand was worried that he would never get it back so we sat there arguing for a bit until the guards told him to come back later to get it. The real problem was that the guards were about the change shift and the ones coming in may not know who the knife belonged to. But they figured things out and I walked away laughing that they had caught Steve's knife but not mine even though it was bigger than Steve's.

Once again, pictures galore. I was running out of memory already but I just kept taking more and more pictures until I got the perfect shot of everything. We all even went into the upper crypt to visit some of the laying areas of some popes. The major highlight of the crypt was the tomb of the late Pope John Paul II. There were flowers all over and around the tomb and little envelops of what I guessed to be intentions and prayers. It was a sad and nice place to be. And with a quick prayer and shot of the tomb we continued and left the Bascillica.

It was already getting late and our stomachs were starting the growl. We wanted to do some crazy walking today and decided to skip the whole take subway home thing and take the #11 bus (A.K.A. your own legs). This turned out to be much better because we got to see the western part of Rome all on feet and just took pictures of almost everything. The walking was tiring and did take around 1.5 hours, but there were really 2 things that we needed to do before we headed home. First was the have GELATO and second was to take night shots of the Trevy fountain. We stopped at the Trevy fountain and spent 30 minutes taking pictures and also threw our coins in while making a wish. Hopefully it comes true.

Before I went to bed, I had to save and backup all the shots I had taken for the day. I went to the nearest internet shop and got ripped off. 4 euros a disc. I bured 4 discs (bye bye 16 euros). We went back and just relaxed in front of the TV and read our books. The day was tiring but it was the most satisfying. My guess is that we will be going there tomorrow again.

Labels: eurotrip

posted by lazypig @ 3:17 PM