Today we went to the smallest country in the world: the Vatican. We metroed there in the morning and were confronted by a 2 hour line up to get tickets. That made us very happy we had pre-bought tickets. We surpassed the huge line of irritated travelers and got right in.
The Vatican city is the capital and only city of the Vatican, and it is where the pope resides. It is very famous for the Sistine chapel, st. Peters basilica, and it's museums.
Seeing the whole thing took us about 5 hours, it was that big. To get to the Sistine chapel, you pass through a series of rooms with different themes. There was the human statue room, the animal statue room, the extremely exciting vase room, the carpet room, the pope room, and just about any other room you could imagine. Every room had mosaic or marble floors and beautiful frescos on the walls and ceilings. The route took us through some courtyards and past some amazing works of art. The route finally led us to the Sistine chapel.
The Sistine chapel is very famous for the paintings on its ceilings and walls of biblical events, painted by Michelangelo. They were huge and pretty amazing, and the chapel was packed. Apparently the room was holy so it was supposed to be kept silent; therefor a poor worker had the job of trying to make hundreds of people shut up. We got tired of the continuous repetition of 'shhhh.. Silence please' and all the people so we moved on.
Finding st. Peters basilica was an unforeseen challenge. We kept asking workers where to go and getting directions in broken English. After a couple of tries, we finally gathered that we had to exit the Vatican and go around the walls. Doing so, we found the basilica and st. Peters square.
St. Peters square is where all the popes are inaugurated, and the basilica is considered one if the holiest churches in christiandom. It was a huge and pretty fantastic sight. People where queuing up to get into the basilica, but the line looked several hours long and we decided it wasn't worth it.
Seeing as it was our last day in Rome, we thought a walk through the city was a good idea. We headed down Tiber river, over some bridges and into the old town of rome, trastevere. There we FINALLY found my long-sleeve Rome shirt. Believe me, this was monumental seeing as I had searched at least 30 shops.
We ate at a pasta place for our last night in Rome, and then headed back to our hotel. We fly away tomorrow morning, which is unbelievable because it feels like we were at yvr just yesterday.