#3059 The Trip: Vatican City and the Pantheon

 

family at the Vatican Museums

Our second full day in Rome was truly "full." We had two tours booked and it started with an early morning walk to Vatican City. From our apartment, it was about a 40 minute walk. You know you're getting close when you see this:

view of St. Peter's Basilica, Ponte Sant'Angelo and the Tiber River

Our tour took us through parts of the Vatican Museums, through each of the four the Raffaelo Rooms, into the Sistine Chapel, and through St. Peter's Basilica. Each of these places is spectacular, and they are crowded - really, really crowded. Someday I would love to just get the audio guide and go as early as possible and wander through the Vatican Museums without a group tour. There are Caravaggio paintings in there that I didn't get to see and I would like to find them. There are paintings by more modern artists, including Picasso and Dali that I would like to get more than a passing glace at on my way to the Sistine Chapel. I would like to have more time in each of the Raffaelo rooms to take a closer look at all the figures. Raffaelo threw a lot of cool bits in his big frescos. Here are some examples:

what the heck is that kid doing to that dog?

a dragon!

that's an interesting dress, Innocentia

I love the expression on this face

that guy in the black hat looking right at you? That's Raffaelo

these two guys showed up on a rock & roll album cover almost 500 years later

that thoughtful fellow? Michelangelo

Photos aren't allowed in the Sistine Chapel. There is a bunch of cool stuff in there, too, as you know. St. Peter's is a feast for the eyes. From the Pieta to St. John Paul's chapel to the Pope's altar and the dome itself, not to mention all the tombs of past popes with the beautiful sculptures and all the gold. Did you know there are no paintings in the Basilica? It's all mosaic. It's incredible. I was going to post some of my photos of a few of the well-known pieces, but you can see those online. You might not get to see the smaller things that caught my eye that I posted above, though!

Here is a panoramic shot I took of Saint Peter's Square:

pano!

That's St. Peter's Basilica on the left. Going clockwise, the Sistine Chapel is that orange building to the right of the Basilica that looks kind of plain on the outside. Then you'll see Bernini's columns, and the obelisk in the center. Those chairs are always set up for the Pope's weekly audience on Wednesdays.

Many hours later, when we'd had our fill of Vatican City, we walked back to the the centro storico, the historic center of the city where we were staying. We had lunch at Quelli de' Coronari. I had pasta and it was great.

We had just a bit of time to go back to the apartment to have a rest before we met our tour for the Pantheon. Thankfully it was just a couple minutes to walk to the meeting place. When I went to the Pantheon with Lizzie, we didn't have a tour, and it was fine. It is a big room with some tombs (Raffaelo and Vittorio Emanuele II, most notably.) The guide on our tour on this day gave us some good information and we had plenty of time to see everything. I'm pretty sure an audio guide would give the same info for a lot less cost. The Pantheon is beautiful and interesting inside and out.

inside the Pantheon with the occulus

looking out from the Pantheon into Piazza della Rotunda

When the tour was over, we had aperitivo at the restaurant with the white umbrellas you can see on the left in the photo above. Our drinks came with snacks, so we called that our meal for the evening since we were still full of pasta.

aperitivo

It was a big day. My step count was 14,755. The next day would be the biggest step count in Rome when we went to the Borghese Galleries, back through the centro storico to the Campodoglio to look at the Capitoline Museums. I'll tell you about that on Sunday!

xo