I booked a ticket for the Vatican Museums for the morning. Again you need to specify a time but they don't seem to enforce it very much. The museums are located in a strange location, you have to walk around the exterior wall of the Vatican to get to it. It's no problem though, because there's so many people going the same way - not to mention all the people trying to sell guided tours along the way. The simple rule of a tourist is, the more people you see the better.
I managed to skip a sizeable queue thanks to the booking again which was nice, and started making my way through the museum exhibits. I didn't have an audio guide or a map, so didn't always know what I was looking at besides the signs for each room. They had a nice range of stuff, some clay stuff, artwork, painted walls and ceilings, and this weird large gold ball. All the while there was a sign indicating the Sistine Chapel was coming up next, but of course it was right at the end of the tour. I think it was just to assure people it was still coming and you hadn't missed it.
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| Not the Ballon d'Or. |
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| Not the Sistine Chapel. |
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| One of the many halls in the Vatican museum. |
The Sistine Chapel was very full when I got there, and the only place that you aren't allowed to take photos, or talk. And for once they actually enforced it. The ceiling was pretty cool, but I was surprised that the famous centrepiece of the ceiling wasn't as large and prominent as I assumed it would be, it was just one small part.
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| Even leaving was a bit of fun. |
Went back down the hill to Vatican City next, which consists of little more than St. Peter's Square and the buildings around it. The most famous of these would be St. Peter's Basilica in the middle, which you can queue up and enter for free. Waiting in the sun in the line to get through security took forever. The Basilica is similar in design to the museums, with all of the gold decorated walls and statues. It was a lot bigger than I expected, particular the big dome area towards the back. I'm pretty sure I could see people up at the top of the dome walking around, but I have no idea if there was some tour you had to go on to get up there.
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| St. Peter's square. |
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| The similarly named St. Peter's basilica. |
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| I think I can see people up the top there. |
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| The Schweizergarde. |
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| St. Peter's square and the basilica. I still don't know what a basilica is. |
Since Rome is so small as I discovered yesterday, I realised I could walk all the way back from Vatican City to the centre of Rome without any trouble. On the way I passed Castel Sant'angelo, which is a castle if you hadn't guessed. Next was Piazza Del Popolo which didn't really have much in it, so I rank it second out of the three piazzas I've passed by. The piazza leads into Via Del Corso which the hotel reception have told me is the main street for shops. Most of the usual stuff was there, but nothing too interesting and it wasn't really that big.
There's always time for one more piazza so I also saw Piazza Di Spagna and The Spanish Steps. I'm not sure why they are Spanish, but I can confirm there was some steps there. Every restaurant I saw in Italy was described as a Ristorante Pizzeria, I don't even know if they sold anything else in the city. I didn't go to any special authentic looking restaurant, I just picked one that looked normal and easy to order from.
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| The Spanish Steps. |
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