Vatican City, the smallest sovereign nation in the world, comprising just 1 sq km on the western bank of the Tiber river. We took a bus towards Vatican City on Tuesday afternoon and walked in through Via della Conciliazione. Upon arriving the Piazza di San Pietro, we saw a pretty long queue of tourist waiting to enter St Peter’s Basilica. We quickly join in the queue. I went wandering around taking photos while Bel stayed in the queue. There are rows of chairs arranged at the Piazza in preparation for the public audience by the pope, tomorrow (Wednesday) morning at 10am. Lucky for us, we needn’t wait too long as the flow of the queue is rather smooth. Dress code and security are stringently enforced, bags need to be put through the x-ray scanners and no drinks were allowed, just like boarding a plane; no shorts, miniskirts, or sleeveless tops are allowed.
Michelangelo was responsible for the design of the grand dome, soaring 120m above the altar and was completed in 1590. The altar in the centre of the basilica is the reputed site of St Peter’s tomb. There are tours you can take to visit the tombs underneath the basilica where all the popes rest after death. There is a souvenir shops further in selling various religious accessories including holy water. 
Bernini on the other hand designed the Piazza di San Pietro, laid out in the 17th century. The vast piazza is bound by 2 semicircular colonnades, each comprising 4 rows of Doric columns. The obelisk in its centre was brought from Heliopolis and is framed by 2 fountains. There are many youngsters sitting/lying near the centre, resting and chatting; while most of the other tourists choose to rest around the colonnades. 
Upon leaving the basilica, my eyes were attracted to the Swiss guards in their unique traditional uniform in bright orange and blue stripes. Originally they were the Swiss mercenaries hired by the pope as part of an army, which later on also became the personal bodyguard of the Pope. Most of the Swiss guards I seen there were actually pretty young. Recruitment is arranged by a special agreement between the Holy See and Switzerland, and is restricted to Catholic male (Swiss) citizens.
Sistine Chapel
We came back to Vatican City again on Thursday morning to visit the Vatican museum and also the Sistine Chapel. It is a different queue at a different location from the queue to enter the basilica. Again, there is a long queue. As usual, Bel waited in the queue while I went towards the head of the queue to find out if we are in the right queue. At the entrance, there are 2 queues, one for normal independent tourists like us, the other for group tourists (or those joining a guided tour). Again, we didn’t wait long before entering the museum. We proceed to the ticket counter and got our tickets and also pick up a floor plan leaflet. We weren’t quite sure where to start so we just kind of followed the crowd. One thing I noticed here is that all the signs here will point towards the Sistine Chapel but in order to get there, you’ll first go through many galleries and halls. We took our time browsing through the amazing collections of art and treasures collected by the popes. Take note to not only see what’s there parallel to your eye-sight but also look up to the beautiful paintings on the ceiling and also sometimes the floor. As we did not join a guided tour nor did we hire the audio guide, we sometimes ‘overhear’ the explanations by the guides nearby to understand a little background / other interesting stories about the art pieces. This is not easy as most of the guided tours are conducted with the tourists having their own earpiece receiving the explanations from their guide speaking softly into his mic via an electronic device (probably a walkie talkie). So only those groups with smaller number of people or those private guides would actually speak louder to be overheard by us. So both Bel and I would compare notes on what we’ve heard and try to match it up to the facts in our guidebooks.
The Sistine chapel is at the end of the standard route through the Vatican museum and its pretty crowded when we got there. Everybody’s head is tilted upwards to admire the wonderful frescoes Creation and Last Judgement by Michelangelo. It took him 4 years to paint the Creation; and 24 years later he painted the extraordinary Last Judgement. It is not allowed to take photos inside the Sistine Chapel so when there’s an occasional flash, you’ll see the officer in charge rush over to the person and request him not to take photos. Since this is a chapel, one is supposed to remain quiet inside. But most could not resist discussing or explaining what they know or what they have seen making it quite noisy. So every 30 seconds or so, you’ll hear 3 claps followed by ‘Shhhh……’ from one of the officer. Everyone will quiet down for a while before continuing on discussing in hush tones.
From Bel’s guide book, we learn that there’s actually a secret exit going out from the chapel leading towards the St Peter’s Basilica. This is actually catered for guided groups so they could actually skip the queue into the basilica. However, you cannot take this exit if you hired the audio guide because you then will not be able to return them to the counter. Since we didn’t hire the audio guide we went on to explore the exit. The exit is on the right at the very end of the chapel (if you stand looking into the chapel from the chapel’s entrance). Feeling a little anxious as we do not know if this is allowed since we were not with any guided tours, we tried to blend in with a group of Korean tourists exiting at that time. Well, asian face, who can tell? ;p We went down a flight of stairs and voila, we are at the main entrance of the basilica. There are 2 Swiss guards on guard there. Since we are already inside, we went into the basilica again for another round and visited the souvenir shop as Bel wanted to buy some gifts for her friend.Here are the photos from Rome and Vatican City. Enjoy !
Rome '08
Vatican City '08
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