Vatican City with a Toddler

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This morning we headed out to Vatican City. We arrived at St. Peter’s Basilica as it opened at 7 a.m. The piazza outside the Basilica is full of huge columns topped with statues of saints. The area was practically empty except for us, a old man singing (beautifully) to the saints, and a few pigeons. There was a line to get into the basilica, but it disappeared almost as soon as the gates opened, we lingered for a little while and enjoyed the empty piazza. When you enter the basilica, you’re entering another country, so you have to go through metal detectors, but that didn’t take long. We weren’t allowed to take our stroller into the church, so we had to check it downstairs.

Entering St. Peter’s Basilica was the biggest wow moment we’ve had so far on this trip. It’s huge and beautiful. There are beautiful artworks everywhere. Katherine is especially fond of babies. She likes cupids and angel babies, so she was impressed with the oversized babies near the entrance. Katherine was able to run around and explore without me worrying that she would break things, because most of the sculptures are on walls and/or out of reach. There were several prayer groups meeting throughout the basilica and their prayers and songs filled the church with beautiful sounds.

We left the Basilica, retrieved our stroller and headed back out around the corner to get in line for the Vatican Museum. We arrived 30 minutes before the museum opened, but the line was already huge. We ended up waiting for an hour. We were lucky that, for most of the hour, the sky was cloudy. (Thank goodness we had a package of cookies to distract Katherine.) The museum was extremely crowded. But we were allowed to keep our stroller, and three times in the museum we were ushered to elevators and through special entrances because of the stroller. The staff at the museum were very helpful to parents of small children. We rushed through much of the museum, because we didn’t want Katherine to get fussy before we got to the Sistine Chapel. (Unfortunately, this museum accommodates only one-way traffic, so you can’t go back to see what you’ve missed.) When we arrived in the Sistine Chapel, it was packed, but the staff let us stand in a special area designated for families with small children. That’s a nice a way of trying to make sure that parents don’t loose their little ones in the crowd. Katherine loved the Sistine Chapel. She kept squealing and pointing at things. A few times she yelled, “Man! Man!” I guess she was pointing for us to look at Adam or some other man. You’re supposed to be silent in the Sistine Chapel, but it was so crowded that everyone’s whispers jumbled together and made a lot of noise. The Sistine Chapel was actually quite loud. Despite the guards yelling “Silenzio!” (Silence!) every once in a while. The chapel would be quiet for a second and then crescendo into loudness again.

The exit lead us back to the piazza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica again (which was busier than it was early in the morning), and we decided to relax for a little while as we watched Katherine chased pigeons. She really loves those birds. One nice man had brought crumbs for the pigeons to eat. When he saw how much Katherine loved the pigeons, he started throwing small amounts of bread crumbs near her feet so the birds would go closer to her. She loved it.

We had took the Metro back to the Termini Station and had a delicious lunch at an outside café between the train station and our hotel. After naps, we went out and spent our last night in Rome bargaining with street vendors, eating gelato outside the church of Saint Maria Maggiore, and watching dusk fall over the Colosseum.

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Photos

St. Peter's Basilica
You can see a crowds of people entering the church on the right side of the picture, but we avoided the lines by lingering outside for a little while. (This gave David time to quench his thirst with Powerade.)

Outside St. Peter's Basilica
a quiet place in the morning

Inside St. Peter's Basilica
Katherine loved the giant babies!

Pigeons
pigeons at St. Peter's Basilica

Our Hotel
You can see us in the window.

Gelato
I had mint. Papa had watermelon. Katherine had kiwi. So many lovely flavors, so little time.

footbridge over a road
We found a lovely place to look at the Colosseum. Surprisingly, we were the only ones on the bridge.