The Vatican City

Like most travelers I love to keep track of how many countries I have visited, and to add new ones to my list. When I started working on ships my goal was to visit more countries that my Dad, something I managed within my first contract. So it should come as no surprise that a visit to the Vatican City was on my list of things to do when visiting in Rome – It did kind of help that they have an amazing museum and the largest basilica. With that I set out to discover my 106th country.

 

 

When reading up on the Vatican City before the trip I did read that the Pope had an outdoor service every Wednesday, and that in order to attend you had to collect your ticket the Monday before. I had of course forgotten this by the time I got to Rome, and chose Wednesday morning as our time to visit the St. Peter´s Basilica. As we stood in line for security we noticed that most people around us had tickets, but we did not realize what they were. As the service was about to start and it was not that crowded, security let us through anyways.

 

 

As soon as we got to the square we saw the Pope being driven around in his Popemobile. We still did not realize that there was a service about to start, and just thought it was cool that we actually got to see the Pope in real life. He then took a seat on a small stage and the service began. It was only at this point that I made the connection as to why everyone else had tickets. The service itself was conducted in 7 different languages, surprisingly enough Arabic was one of them. Even if it was a bit repetitive listening to the same being said in English, French, German – and not understanding the Spanish, Italian, Polish and Arabic –  it was very interesting to be a part of this.

 

 

After the service we wanted to visit the Basilica itself. A guard informed us that it would open an hour later, and pointed us in the direction of the super long line. As we had tickets for the Vatican Museum (more on that a bit later) we quickly realized that we would not be able to do this visit first and decided to come back in the afternoon. So instead we followed the crowds towards the museum, and stopped for some mandatory souvenir shopping instead.

 

 

The Vatican Museum is extremely popular and it is strongly advised to get tickets online in advance. There is just one catch with this, only a certain number of tickets are available online and they sell out extremely fast. Having checked regularly since they booked the trip, my parents were extremely lucky to find available tickets the night before we left for Rome. Without tickets you can still show up to the museum, you just have to stand in line for several hours (or buy some highly priced ones from those selling on the streets around the Vatican).

 

 

The Vatican Museum is laid out with several areas to explore, but the most famous room is of course the Sistine Chapel with its beautiful ceiling painted by Michelangelo. To get to the Sistine Chapel you walk through several magnificently decorated rooms and corridors. The only problem here is that there are so many people and you walk in a line the entire time, so you do not have the time to stop and properly appreciate all the incredible art. My main tactic was to take as may pictures as I could so that I could properly look at them at home.

 

 

The Sistine Chapel itself was as impressive as I thought it would be – all the details in the paintings were absolutely unbelievable. However, there were so many people all over the place that there was no place to properly stop and admire everything. This is also the only room where photography is not allowed, something the many guards kept reminding us of.

 

 

I must say that my absolutely favorite room in the Vatican Museum is in the Pinacoteca wing. The walls of this room is lined with the most beautiful and detailed tapestries. There is then one gap in the tapestries where there are three absolutely amazing paintings by Raphael. This room was not really crowded so we had time to listen to the audioguide and really appreciate everything we could see.

 

 

After a quick lunch we decided to head back to St. Peters Basilica to see if we could get in. Back in the square the line almost went all the way around this massive square. While it was moving, it was still moving slowly. As we only had a few hours left before leaving for the airport we decided that we had seen so many incredible things, and that we should save this visit for the next time.