The Vatican

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We've booked a morning tour of the Vatican. We need to be there a bit before 8am, so it's another early start after a long day of travelling yesterday. We're both feeling a bit tired. It's really hot again, and Issy says she's feeling the heat here even more than she did in Marrakech.

The queues outside the Vatican Museums are massive. Fortunately we've booked a group tour so we get to jump to the front. Everyone told us before we left home about the advantages of booking on-line in advance; I'm glad we listened. The operators here seem to have mass tourism down to a very fine art. Our names are ticked off as we arrive, and we're told to stand in a very specific place. Our guide then hands out head sets so we can hear her as she speaks into a microphone. She carries a flag so we don't lose her in the crowd, which is a wise move given she's about 4 foot 11. She introduces herself as Elizabetta and tells us that she's an archaeologist.

We start with the Museums. They're huge, and Elizabetta tells we'll only have time to see the highlights. She gives us some background on Michelangelo and his painting of the Sistine Chapel. He sounds like he was an interesting character. She tells us he was very grumpy, and always worked alone. He was also notable for wearing the same old boots 365 days a year, and for not washing nearly often enough. He didn't want to paint the Sistine Chapel because he said that his expertise was in sculpture, but he was eventually bullied into it by the Pope. He wouldn't let anyone see his work until it was finished. One night a cardinal snuck in without permission, so Michelangelo "rewarded" him by painting his image into the "Last Judgement" with donkey's ears, and with a snake wrapped around his body biting his testicles. Rafael was Michelangelo's sworn rival and was also a colourful character. He was a serial womaniser and not surprisingly died of syphilis at only 32. I‘d always assumed that all these famous artists would have been solid, respectable citizens, but it seems that nothing could have been too much further from the truth. A lot of the early popes weren't all that saintly either. One of them was notable for murdering his rivals, and a lot of them also had children, which they passed off as nieces and nephews.

Everything in the Museums seems to be extremely old, and Elizabetta says that in Italy anything produced after the 17th century is considered modern. By that definition the whole of Australia post-European settlement is modern, including Captain Cook and all the early explorers. We passed a building site on the way here to the Vatican, and it seemed that when they dug it up to put in the foundations they found some ancient ruins. I suspect that if you tried to plant a tree in your backyard here in Rome you'd probably unearth an ancient ruin.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling is beyond spectacular, and the piece where God and Adam almost touch fingers gives me goosebumps. They have very strict rules in the Chapel. No photography's allowed, and you're not supposed to whisper let alone talk. It's packed, and police are constantly trying to keep everyone moving through. People seem to have short memories regarding the no talking rule, so every five minutes or so the police make an announcement to remind them. There's then silence for a minute or so until everyone forgets again and starts talking, and the whole cycle then restarts.

Saint Peter's Basilica is also beyond spectacular. The famous Michelangelo sculpture, The Pieta, is behind bullet proof glass after someone attacked it with a hammer a few decades ago. It seems hard to believe that Saint Peter is actually buried under the altar here.

The drivers here are all mad, and I break into a cold sweat when I remember that in only a few days now we'll be hiring a car. Elizabetta tells us that as pedestrians we should assume that all drivers want to kill us. Stopping at red lights seems to be optional, particularly for motorbikes, and you take your life in your hands if you assume anyone's going to stop for you at a pedestrian crossing.

We awake from our siesta and set off for the Castel Sant'Angelo. We decide we'll try to get there by bus. I look at a website for some clues on how to do this. It says not to bother with the route map, as it's too confusing, and suggests instead that you just turn up at any stop and catch any bus that looks like it might be heading roughly in the right direction. This sounds great in theory, but I suspect the flaw might be the assumption that you know what the right direction is. Nevertheless, we decide to give it a go, and miraculously it seems to work. We do however look like stupid tourists, and a helpful local has to show us how to validate our tickets after watching us struggle to do it ourselves.

The Castel was built in around 135 AD by the emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for his family. It was later used as a castle by some of the popes, and is now a museum. We get excellent panoramic views over the city from the rooftop.

Issy's supposed to be our local language expert but it seems that her Italian may be a bit rusty. I notice she's struggling to remember some of the basic phrases that tourists need to know, such as "where's the toilet", and "can you please bring me two beers". We stop for some drinks and fruit at a cafe near the top of the Castel. While we're there, someone at another table drops a beer glass and it shatters. The waitress calls out to one of her colleagues for help to clean up the damage. Issy's ears prick up. She says that she recognises the words for "dustpan" and "shovel". I didn't notice "Italian for Cleaners" amongst her study material, but I'm now thinking that maybe I wasn't looking quite closely enough.

We walk along the river bank to the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci. Displays include a diverse range of machines invented by the great man, including pumps, bicycles and cannons. It seems that he was a genius at just about everything he touched, all the way from painting to engineering. We read that near the end of his life he wrote that he thought that God would be a bit disappointed with him because he didn't make the most of his talents. I'm not sure quite where this leaves the rest of us.

We walk up into the Borghese Gardens where we get excellent views over the city at sunset. We get lost, before stumbling across the metro which we use to get back to the hotel. The stations all seem to have exotic names such as Circus Maximus and Colosseum, which somehow sound a whole lot more inspiring than the mundane offerings we're used to back home.

We dine at a busy pizza and pasta restaurant on an island in the river. I'm not sure I'll be able to eat pizza again when I get home. The crust on mine is thin and crispy, and they hold back on the cheese, which is just how I like it.

I'm suffering from blogging fatigue. I know that I need to blog every night before I go to bed, or I'll get behind and never catch up. Between looking around and blogging there's too much to do. Sleep is suffering. Issy offers to take over blogging for a few days. I politely decline her kind offer and then quickly change the password just in case she‘s tempted to try; I'm way too worried about what she'd say about me. As I write this, she's half asleep and telling me to put the blog away. I think that maybe I need a break from blogging. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

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Comments

[Peter Zahnleiter]

Dave, are you aware you can drink the water coming out of the fountains in Rome? Cool and clean. Perhaps avoid drinking the water IN the fountains, but have a crack at the stuff coming out of the Lion's ..... It beats paying for bottled wat
er.