9 May 2019: Vatican CIty, Vatican Museums, Saint Peter's Square & St. Peter's Basilica

Yes, it's a bike trip, but not yet. Our bikes remain in their cases, as Rome is not particularly bike friendly for two Americans on their first trip to Rome.

Train Tips

A friend recommended "train line.eu" as a handy app to book train tickets by phone, avoiding often confusing ticketing machines and lines in the train stations. Our experience in Italy has been that their offerings are limited, often showing "Not available" or "Sold out". Rick Steves recommended "trainitaly" in Italy, and we found that tickets were available for the "Not available" or "Sold out" trains. Our tickets are booked to Pesaro for 9:28 Friday morning.

Vatican City

Our Metro trip to Vatican CIty was the easiest part of our day. Upon emerging from the Metro, a tour booker (?) approached us, persuading us that a 56 euro tour was our only option. She was right. Even at 9 am, the crowds were huge. Unlike many museums where ticket sales are limited, our tour was 2.5 hours in a throng, where staying within range of our guide was challenging. Our guide was informative, engaging, and the throngs were waiting outside for 2-4 hours for even a portion of our tour. Still, as you will see from the photos, we bumped steadily through the throng to see a fraction of the secondlargest museum in the world.

Per our guide, the popes were not particularly art fans. Rather, they were interested in demonstrating their reach and power by purchasing and displaying the rarest and most impressive art available. Egyptian objects were collected, since Moses came from Egypt. Greek, Etruscan, and Roman items were precursors of Catholic Rome. Budgets permitting, the popes commissioned the best art artists, even if those artists were not particularly fond of the popes or the Church. Man was the symbol of the divine creation, especially in the naked male form. Given that summary, what follows is a small portion of what was on display.

Walls of Vatican CIty

Dome of St. Peter's Basillica

Hall lined with 100s of busts and statues

Clever Arch

Apollo. Most of the statues are copies of the original Greek bronze statues. Since this was pagan art, the original bronzes were deemed more valuable when melted into armaments. Only the stone reproductions survive. The tell  is supports such as that on the left was added for support. While the bronze form could support itself, the marble sculpture would collapse under its own weight.

Statues often feature an urn as a source of water, vital to the Romans.

Symbolizing a Spartan victory, (If i accurately remember what our guide said.

Masks were popular to represent actors. Women were not allowed in the theatre, so men used masks to play multiple roles.

You gotta love this expression.

Dog of the Day. Given all the stone sculptures, what else did you think qualified?

Said to be the original Greek torso that inspired Michelangelo (his David) and many other artists.

Good Hair

Ceremonial Chariot.

Etruscan Urn

Lay-About? (OK, perhaps that was insensitive, but I cannot tell you who they were and so many were on display. The Vatican Museum pattern seems to be to display common types of items in the same gallery, so one is overwhelmed upon 10s or 100s off similar exhibits.

Tapestry. The Vatican commissioned the finest artists throughout Europe, particularly from Belgium, Italy, and France. An entire hall was filled with huge tapestries like this one that were commissioned for the Sistine Chapel but never installed. Art works were often complicated and late, designers' plans changed over time, and artists fell in-and-out of favor.

Our route will be East-toWest, across the middle. They had an entire long hall filled with individual maps of each Italian region or province, positioned from the perspective of Rome as the center of the world. Thus, provinces south of Rome are upside down.

Saint Peter's Basilica. No photos of the Sistine Chapel where all photos are prohibited.

The Dome of Saint Peter's Basilica. Here Christopher and I parted. Our guide ended her portion of the tour, and Christopher, honoring his architectural training, opted to wait in line to climb the steps to this dome. I spent another 30 minutes wandering about Saint Peter's, going to lunch (panini), and taking the Metro back to our hotel.

Dead Pope. While the Romans practiced cremation, the Catholic Church opposed it. Hence these burial entombment.

Swiss Guard.

Saint Peter's from the Square.