Vatican City - Day 3 🇻🇦

This blog is brought to you by Ellie.

Good day, fellow travellers! Today we awoke to much milder weather from the get-go. It was an early start for us, rising at 06:30, having a quick breakfast and rushing out the door. Despite our efforts, we were running a bit behind and it was a little bit panic stations when we came out from the Metro and marched toward Vatican City, the second country of the trip and, as Barry mentioned, the smallest country in the world! Fun fact: highest number of Popes per square mile. If you are particularly religious, just be warned, we are not.

We had booked a guided tour of the Vatican Museum and weren’t a hundred percent sure where we were supposed to be. Barry ran ahead to see what he could find out. It was about 10 minutes until our tour started and we came upon quite a long queue just to get into the museum itself. We were genuinely concerned that the tour would start without us, but we needn’t have worried, because we were seemingly right on time and the tour guide was ready to get going.

The tour started with the tour lady giving us presentation all about the Sistine Chapel, because she wouldn’t be able to take us through it. Its is always packed with people and you’re not supposed to talk there, so she would leave us beforehand. It was very informative and we learned about Michelangelo’s creative process and what he may have been thinking or experiencing whilst painting the ceiling of the chapel. We learned that if you annoy him, he may just paint you in hell with a snake biting your privates… so be warned. She zoomed in and out of a lot of paintings and for some reason always managed to zoom in on a phallus of some sort, though it’s probably more difficult to avoid them, they’re everywhere.

Presentation complete, our tour guide walked us through to the museum proper, where we started on a terrace looking up at the Basilica. We learned that this is, and will always be, the tallest building in Rome because you are simply not allowed to build higher to protest the historical significance of Rome’s architecture (and how dare you suggest living higher than the Pope).

There was a pretty fountain set into the wall which we were told was special for Pope reasons so Barry filled our water bottles with Pope juice as instructed. We drank it and I can only assume we have been infused with holy powers, like the ability to turn up in upstate New York out of nowhere, for no reason… oh hold on, that’s Mormonism, we are in Catholic land. Let’s move on, fully hydrated.

We walked through to another courtyard surrounded by ornate buildings soaked in sunlight and found a rare bronze statue. We were informed that bronze statues are so rare to find in Rome because most were dismantled to make weaponry, mostly during the 4th and 5th centuries.

In the centre of the courtyard there was a modern sculpture of a bronze orb - a replica of the one at the top of the Basilica. It was pretty massive but I’m sure the tour guide said the real thing is ten times its size… having been up there now I’m not sure I heard that right, but rest assured, it is large.

Next, we headed inside a new building into a long gallery fully lined by statues of all kinds. All of the galleries in the museum were commissioned by Popes at various points in history. I wonder if Papa Leo will do the same.. the history of Chicago deep dish pizza perhaps.

We were steered through a few more galleries, one very dimly lit to protect the walls full of intricate tapestries hanging from ceiling to floor, another full of Barry’s favourite thing in the live long world: MAPS. Maps of the different regions of Italy, painstakingly hand drawn and surprisingly accurate, they were definitely a highlight! Barry felt the tour guide was walking a little too quickly through this area.

We were then taken outside onto a walkway and into another upper floor, where the current pope lives higher up, but the rooms we were currently touring were chosen by Pope Julius II, who wanted to commission Michelangelo to paint it, but he was a little busy with a certain chapel ceiling… so he found another willing participant in Raphael to do an excellent job at story telling. It wouldn’t be complete without one singular boob slipping out, would it?

Finally we had made it to the end of the tour, which we both very much enjoyed and got a lot out of. We usually prefer doing our own thing but when there is so much history we know nothing about, a guided tour is necessary. It brings us right back to the Hubbard family holiday in Spain last year where the tour guide at the Alhambra was an absolute dream. So much so, my brother and sister-in-law got us a tea towel for Christmas with his image and famous catchphrase on - “Look at dis!” Love that guy.

Back to the present, we waved goodbye to our marvellous guide and headed into the Sistine Chapel itself. We’d heard it can be like sardines in here but today it was blessedly spacious. There was more chatter going on that I expected but I suppose people can’t help it. It really is remarkable to see it in person. Every inch of every wall is painstakingly painted and also maintained each year by staff. If it wasn’t, it would be barely there at all. We stood looking up at the ceiling for a while, breaking our necks to gaze at some of the most famous works of art in the actual world. This is a no photography zone, so if you see a photo below, no you didn’t (it was Barry). Henning would have loved this!

Now, we loved our tour guide, but she told us that we could take a shortcut to the Basilica if we asked the man guarding a separate door to the exit… either she was wrong or we should have slipped him some cash to go along with it, because we were sent packing with the rest of the hordes through the longest and fanciest gift shop I have ever witnessed.

No time to browse though, we had a date with the Basilica and our ticket had an arrival time, which was ten minutes from when we left the chapel. Tour guide lady and exit door man have a lot to answer for, because for the second time that day I found myself speed-walking. I have worked hard at the gym over the past year with Shana but I do not enjoy this form of workout, and it shows. Barry zoomed off again just to make sure we wouldn’t miss our slot and I caught up later to find that the queues were so big we never would have got through in time anyway. The time on the ticket seemed to be more of a suggestion than a deadline. But now I’d caught my breath I patiently waited with Barry, my feet beginning to ache and burn, blisters forming under my toes. Lovely!

About 45 minutes of queuing later, my feet had really had enough, a bit like they did right at the end of our final Disney day in California last year. Today though, I couldn’t rest, we had the whole of the Vatican to explore!

We started by entering the main building at the very bottom right, through cloakrooms and toilets. You can purchase a headset here for a more in depth experience if you so choose.

After a couple of flights of steps we were suddenly smashed in the face by all things Pope. I don’t know any of the terms for any of it, so apologies, but every corner was marble and statues and paintings and gold. The centre of the room, under the main dome, was taken up by a black and gold structure where I believe new Popes get Poped.

Okay, brace yourselves for this next bit, because if you have a phobia of stairs like me, this will be triggering. We had tickets to go to the top of the dome using the lift.

“Absolutely brilliant”, I said.

“Get in”, I exclaimed.

I was so naïve, so innocent.

We got into the lift and went up three levels. We walked out onto a roof with a little café and gift shop, even a post box so you can send postcards from the Pope’s house! This was all very sweet, but was I seeing to my left that I could have sworn we hard tickets to get to the top of… in a lift? Why, that is the dome. The base of the dome.

“Is there another lift?”

“Nope”

“Are we… climbing stairs?”

“551 stairs”

“P*ss off!”

Readers, we climbed those 551 steps. I had a couple of breaks, encouraged from ahead by Barry and from below by some fellow climbers who were feeling my pain. My stamina has greatly increased of late but I can’t stand the burn. Spiral staircases also throw me right off! We commiserated and congratulated each other as we finally stepped out into the crowded balcony offering a 360 degree view of Vatican City and all of Rome beyond its walls.

It was a beautiful view in the sunshine and fresh air. I felt very accomplished but did find a little spot to sit down while Barry explored and took photos.

After about twenty minutes, we decided to brave the descent, which to me felt just as treacherous as the ascent. My boobs get in the way of my next step so it feels like my brain has decided it isn’t there, forcing me to concentrate twice as hard on not skipping steps and falling to an untimely end. The spiral staircase was even more dizzying going down than up, so I was most relieved when we finally stepped back out onto the roof. It was getting a little later than we had planned for so instead of venturing outside the walls for lunch, we got a couple of sandwiches from the rooftop café and sat in the shade to eat them, occasionally being approached by pigeons for morsels.

Bellies satisfied, we got back in the almost useless lift and found our way out into the famous square. By this time, my feet were on fire and I decided to sit on some steps in the sunshine while Barry scampered about taking photos of flags - another of his favourite things!

He joined me on the steps for a little while and we tried not to fall asleep on each other’s shoulders before heading out of Vatican City, down a road lined with foreign embassies (cue the flag guessing games) and to the star shaped fortress by the River Tiber. We weren’t going inside the fortress today but it was impressive to see and we stood looking out at the river for a while before finding a bench in the nearby park to rest on for a while.

We may have dozed slightly in between watching the birds and the cute dogs. It was high time we high-tailed it back to the hotel to collect our luggage (and charge devices as my phone had died hours ago). It took us a while to figure out how to escape from the park as it is surrounded by a moat, but eventually we made it out and walked/limped for twenty minutes to the nearest Metro station. The hotel was very accommodating and allowed us to sit for a while to recharge and reset before leaving them for the final time.

Usually this part of the blog doesn’t need to happen as the travel home isn’t exactly thrilling reading, but guys, you may not believe it, I found myself having to literally RUN to catch the bloody train to the airport. This day really has tested me! Turns out the train at our platform wasn’t the actual train. The real train was at a lesser platform about half a mile behind it, and it was leaving in maybe two minutes. I wish I was joking. Barry once again ran ahead for me, hoping to cause a commotion and stop the doors from closing. I half ran, half speed-walked my way along the platform, accompanied by other passengers doing the same thing. I made it with just a second to spare and we made it to the airport in good time. Poor Barry’s nerves have been just as tested as my feet have today! We rewarded ourselves with airport pizza and arancini before flying home to chilly Norwich.

And that, dear readers, is the final blog I write as an unmarried lady! We will be back in September for the honeymoon of our dreams, we hope you’ll come along with us (and poor forgotten Henning)!

Ciao ❤️