A Week in Rome: The Vatican

Everything you've seen on this blog so far concering Rome we saw on our first day, although some pictures were taken on subsequent visits. Rome is very accessable and the sights are concentrated in a walkable area. On day 2, we decided to pay a visit to the Pope, or at least his house.

Update: this trip and the blog entries occurred a few weeks before Pope John Paul II died.

We hopped on the Metro and jetted over to Stazione Musei Vaticani, which drops you off just a couple of blocks and a flight of steps from the entrance to the museum. The entrance takes you through a section of the Roman walls, which still surround much of the city.

Inside, one word is in order: opulence. These Popes spent, er, an awful lot of money on the palaces and religious areas of the Vatican. But one can only gripe about the hypocrisy so long before being forced to snap a few pictures. How about...golden ceilings! (yes, that's real gold leaf, and no, you shouldn't have asked)

Enormous murals!

Every crevice frescoed or gold-leafed until it positively hurts!

More! We want more! All in the name of Lord Jeeeeezus!

Well, maybe Jesus didn't authorize that particular room...ahem. Let's move on.

If there is one room of which Jesus might have approved, it's this one, the Sistene Chapel:

Now, I have a confession to make. Photography is strictly forbidden in the Sistene Chapel. However, I have two defenses: 1. I did not use flash; and 2. I am Unitarian and therefore am already going to hell.

The inner courtyard and statuary halls are worth a look, if for nothing else the sheer variety. Everybody, it seems, has gifted the Vatican with a statue over the years. Some of them were collected by the church as well. Lord only knows how this fellow snuck in:

At the top of the inner square, there is a giant artichoke.

At the other end of the square, is a giant ball bearing.

Using only these two symbols, intrepid treasure hunters can discover the key to the Great Mystery, which will take them to a secret vault under Nicolas Cage's house containing the treasures of Enron. You have to figure out the riddle yourself; these guys aren't talking:

In a statuary courtyard, frightened tourists huddle to protect themselves from Giant Naked Slabs of Marble.

Not everyone was naked, however. This fellow seemed quite cozy by comparison.

After an exensive period of being lost, during which we circuited the entire museum main floors TWICE, unable to turn back due to the force of the crowd, we finally left the Vatican Museum down a swirly ramp, sort of like being flushed down God's toilet.

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