One of the Rome must see place is
Vatican with
Vatican Museum,
Sistine Chapel and
St. Peter's Basilica. It is probably the most crowded place in
Rome. A line to buy a ticket to
Vatican museum was about 500 meters long at 10am. We expected it and bought our tickets online in advance and were happy to avoid wasting few hours of our precious time in crowd under the hot Italian sun.
There are 54 galleries in
Vatican Museum in total, with the
Sistine Chapel, being the very last gallery within
the Museum. The collection built up by
the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries including some of the most famous classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of
Renaissance art in the world.
The Museum designed the way that you have to go through all galleries one by one (with few shortcuts to
Sistine Chapel on the way).We enjoyed Roman sculpture, tombstones, and inscriptions as well as paintings by
Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio and others.
Vatican Museum is huge and we were tired when reached
Sistine Chapel. The
Sistine Chapel is famous for the frescoes that present the interior, and most particularly
the Sistine Chapel ceiling and
“The Last Judgment” by
Michelangelo. It was so crowded there that I had to take Teddy on hands. Everyone was looking on sealing and absorbed a beautiful art in subway rush-hour like environment. From
Sistine Chapel there is a direct pathway to
St. Peter's Basilica that meant to be use by official
Vatican guides and their groups. Fortunately, we knew about it and sneaked as a part of the big group and save at least one hour to walk around
Vatican and wait in big line to enter
Basilica.
St. Peter's Basilica is a Late
Renaissance Church located within Vatican City. Designed principally by
Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter's Basilica is the most famous work of
Renaissance architecture and remains one of the largest churches in the world. By Catholic tradition, the Basilica is the burial site of its
Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of
Jesus and, also according to the tradition, the first
Pope and
Bishop of Rome. We spent some time in
Basilica and
St. Peter's Square. Teddy played with pigeons trying to catch them. Pigeons didn't fly away and just ran from Teddy inviting him to play more.
Our afternoon plans included Tiber river cruise and after lunch we headed to the
Sant'Angelo Castle – the closest boat stop. There is a hop-on hop-off boat that runs between 2 stops
(Tiber Isle and
Ponte S. Angelo) during the day with ticket valid for 24 hour.
Sant'Angelo Castle was awesome, but
Tiber River is completely abandoned. To get to the river you have to take stairs around 20 meters down and enter a deserted area. I am wondering why they don’t create a river walk like in
San Antonio, Texas and use kilometers of river bank for entertainment. I remember that in
“Roman Holiday” movie it was a big dancing party on the Tiber river at
Sant'Angelo Castle at the very place we were (when the princess Ann hits the royal agents over the head with beer bottles and then with a guitar). What happened there since 1953?
We took a boat and ride to
Tiber Isle and back. It was no more than 10 tourists on the boat with us. We didn’t see a lot of the city because of 20 meters walls on both sides of the river. We enjoyed a relaxing breeze and architecture of the bridges and buildings.
Next day we booked for
Colosseum – number one tourist attraction in
Rome.
