Vatican City is quite interesting because it is not governed by Italy and essentially is it’s own sovereign nation. It has its own for of government—the hope at the head—its own set of laws, housing, post offices, university, shops, restaurants, form of taxation, hospital, and even its own passport! Vatican city is in no way tied to Italian laws and government. Vatican city’s independence actually came about I believe just before WWII, for Mussolini struck a truce with city, granting it its sovereignty. Another interesting tid bit that came out of this, was that during WWII, Vatican City were able to smuggle Jews out of the country and Mussolini couldn’t do anything about it. Though, on the flip side, they also used their power to smuggle Nazis out of Italy after the war. The city is entirely enclosed by stone walls, with one entrance for business, archways for the Pope’s quick escape if needed, and one entrance guarded by the Swiss for tourists and everyone else. The city only has a population just shy of 400 people, but employs 25,000 people a day!! Obviously not all the workers can live in such a small place, but many live just outside the city’s boundaries.
The second day was hopefully my only splurge day in Europe, which started in Vatican City. Since I was so interested in the history of the city and fearful of being lost in the maze of the Vatican Museum (one of the largest museums on the world) and not making it to the Sistine Chapel or St. Peters, I decided to pay for my first tour. The tour and all my entrance fees totaled 35 Euros—ouch—but was definitely worth it. I was taken through most of the museum—the rest which I later explored on my own—and the Sistine Chapel. I cannot rightly explain how amazing it was to walk through museum and into the Sistine Chapel. In a way I am glad that I was not allowed to take pictures in the chapel for they only could have put the beauty of the artwork to shame. The Sistine chapel is one intense work of art governed more by math than by whimsical creativity. Various artists such as Boticelli Girlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Perugino, and of course, the famed Michelangelo Buonarroti, worked to complete the inside of the chapel. Construction of the church first began in 1475 its purpose to be used for papal assemblies as well as to defend the court against possible attackers, such as Muhammad II’s Turks. Today the church is still used by the papal court as the place where the new pope is chosen and inaugurated.
To enter in the cathedral, I had to walk in the former back entrance of the church. Wow was my first reaction. I must have looked quite stupid with my mouth open, staring up at the ceiling, walking backwards to try and look at the pictures right side up—absolutely oblivious to the people around me, but then I looked around and saw that everyone looked just as goofy. The room was so crowded with oblivious smitten observers that it became like a game of human bumper cars: some would survive and some would not… Nah I’m just kidding, but I did see a few falls and a bunch of people backing into each other. Anyways, the rectangular room was set up as follows: across the entire back wall spanned Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”, on the opposite wall was the front door and some other paintings; in the center on the ceiling was essentially the story of Genesis; in each of the triangles set above the windows and in the corners were the stories of Christ’s ancestors; other spots were other biblical stories; the two longest side walls paralleled the story of Christ’s life with that of Moses. The interesting part here is that the story of Christ’s life was painted along the right side, while the story of Moses was painted on the left. The general consensus is that this choice was made to show that Christ was the true Messiah—the main point of contention between religions. I found the most interesting picture on the sidewalls was the last picture narrating the life of Christ. The image shows the infamous last supper (fyi not Da Vinci’s last supper—this image I believe is in Milan, or at least somewhere else in Italy other than Rome, Florence, and Venice). However, in the background of the supper are 3 windows, each depicting a different ensuring scene: Christ crying for he knows what is to come, Jonas kissing Christ on the cheek, exposing him to officials, and lastly, Christ being crucified. Other than this there was the ceiling—which was of course amazing—and the Last judgment. Look this pic up online, it’s pretty sweet. And the interesting part: the nasty skin-like thing hanging in center of photo is Michelangelo’s depiction of himself.
Easily the Sistine Chapel was the most beautiful work of art I have ever seen, though St. Peter’s Basilica (my next stop) was not very far behind. St. Peter’s Basilica was constructed to honor the saint and currently can hold 20,000 people during mass. I was lucky enough to be there for a little bit of the mass, which was quite the experience in St. Peter’s Basilica!! After spending 4 hours in the Vatican museums, I still managed to go back into the Basilica 3 times: before, in between, and after wandering around the tombs of popes, and climbing 365 f*&%ing stairs with a freaking rope to hold onto just to get into the Basilica’s cupola—view was definitely worth it. Fyi the short story of St. Peter & the Basilica is as follows:
St Peter= 1 of the 12 apostles. Jesus passed the “keys” to him, pretty much transferring leadership to Peter after his death. He took over and was crucified—head down—later under Emperor Nero’s reign. The head down part was chosen by St. Peter because he believed he was not fit to die in the same manner that Christ did. He was buried in 64 A.D. where his Basilica currently stands.
I would have felt bad spending 6 hours exploring Vatican city and leaving Saimah to wait (she saw it all her last trip to Rome) but luckily there was some big twilight thing. As we initially were walking towards the city we saw a huge line that spanned maybe half a kilometer. First we thought the line was for the city but then we decided that really there was no way that hundreds of teenage females were waiting to rush into Vatican City. It turns out they were waiting to see the stars of Twilight who were coming to sign autographs and talk about their upcoming movie. As soon as we figure this out I was psyched because I figured the actual lines to get into the Vatican would be shorter and mmm, they were!! Saimah decided to wait for this, thus allowing me not to feel bad about spending the whole day in the Vatican. I tried to get Saimah to get me the stars’ autographs so I could sell them but she wouldn’t do it. As I’m leaving the Vatican to go find Saimah, I see tons of people crowded around this door underneath a massive Twilight billboard and hear hundreds of girls screaming. I could only assume that Taylor Lautner must have been stripping or something to cause such a riot. So, of course I ran over, hopped onto a statue/light pole-like thing to see some male nudity, but alas, he was fully clothed. I was a little disappointed and hopped down, nailing this girl in the face with my boot. I immediately tried to apologize to the sobbing girl, but realized she hadn’t even noticed that I kicked her head. She was crying because she got a picture of this werewolf actor!! I shook my head and walked away, the sound of screeching girls serenading me for what seemed like miles.
Left: Me being cheesy at the Trevi Fountain. Right: Before dinner Pic.
Left: Dome of St. Peter's Basilica Right: Let's see if anybody can guess what is wrong with this picture...
Right: In Vatican courtyard. Peacocks represent eternal life. Pine Cone: no idea
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This room was built around this ancient Roman bath once it was found.
If my travel blog has any entries half as amusing as the entries in your travel blog, my adventures will have been pretty damn amazing.
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