The Big Boys

Sunday morning we hit the jackpot.

We made a last minute discovery that the Vatican museums were free on the last Sunday of the month (which it was) so we headed off to see how mad it could be. The crowds coming out of the metro were huge, like going to a massive footy game, streets full of people, police, cars, stalls. We made it to St Peter's square which was about half full with huge queues to get in somewhere, we had no idea what was where or quite what was what. So we thought we'd head around to the museums and see if the queue there was manageable to see the Sistine Chapel and all the other good stuff.

Our first glimpse of St Peter's square madness

And there was virtually no-one there... And it was free.

Turns out that Pope fellow was doing a bit of a speech in the square so everyone else went to see him. We saw that on the television later on. So we missed that which was a bit of a pity but the pay off was an amazing trip to one of the most incredible art spectaculars I could imagine. The amount of art in the Vatican is unbelievable. Every centimetre, every space, every surface is decorated. Painted, sculpted, plastered, adorned, chiselled, mosaic-ed, painted some more, covered, layered, and generally just brilliantly coloured and textured. Phenomenal.

One of the Vatican hallways

 

And the artists - Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Carravagio, Matisse, Chagall, Bacon, Titan, et al - just an absolute who's who of the greats. And obviously the highlight was the Sistine Chapel, although the Raphael rooms gave it a good push.

Jo admiring a Carravagio

Paul admiring, um....

And once we had popped out the end of our visit we thought "hey, let's go again", so we dashed back up the stairs just before they closed the entry and had most of the rooms to ourselves which was just boggling. It's one thing being in a room fully heaving with paint, it's quite another to have the room to yourselves, and have the light and sound all perfect.

Raphael - quite a good painter

My secret Sistine Chapel photo - not supposed to.

So that was an unforgettable experience. The colours, the sheer volume of work, sharing the same space as those great artists worked and walked, the enormity of it was incredible.

So then it was back around the corner to St Peter's Basilica. Now that is one huge church. And again just a ridiculous amount of adornment. The architecture of these spaces is simply incredible. How they could design it all, let alone build it, without modern gear is beyond me.

Michelangelo's dome

Mike made this. Aged 23. (!!!)

Inside the Basilica

 

So it was a great day. Even if we couldn't find the beer cafe I was looking for afterwards. We went to sleep very happy indeed.