Vatican City - second time lucky

---

Up early today and on the bus by 7:30am. We arrived at the Vatican line at 8:10am and it was far more reasonable today – only about 150 metres. The entry opens at 9am and we were through the doors by about 9:40 so after an hour and a half plus a day wasted yesterday, we finally got in! Em was a total trooper, waiting patiently the whole time – although we did have an entire backpack full of snacks to keep her occupied.

Up through the maze of entry gates, meeting points and security checkpoints, the lady at the audioguide counter tried to convince us that the “Family Tour” was probably not going to be good for either us or Em as she is a bit young. Don’t believe them!! It is styled as a treasure hunt and takes you through all the major parts of the museum including the paintings, the Egyptian collection, the sculptures and of course the Sistine Chapel. Em absolutely loved finding all the things on the list from paintings to sculptures to the 5000 year old Egyptian artefacts. She was even interested in the mummies and sarcophagi, asking lots of questions and listening intently to the audioguide at each station, which is geared towards kids. And if you want to sit and stare at the paintings for hours, you wouldn’t be bringing a 3 year old here anyway!

The amount of art of all types here is simply amazing. Apparently, if you were to look at every painting in the collection for just one minute each, it would take four years to see them all. And that’s just the paintings – there are hundreds of sculptures, tapestries and other artefacts to see too! The Egyptian collection is a real highlight, seeing something that was carved five millennia ago is just something that is hard to comprehend.

The building itself is really the star of the show, an artwork in its own right. The halls are all decorated with ornate plasterwork and frescoes, even the marble floors and mosaics are amazing.

The final stop is the Sistine Chapel. It has been called the Sardine Chapel by others and that is pretty accurate. There are officials trying to ensure that everyone stays reasonably quiet but they end up making more noise than the crowd anyway with their “shhhh-ing” and directions for people to move here or go there. One even told off a mother for letting her son bend down to tie his shoe!

The paintings in the chapel are beautiful although I think the frescoes around the walls outshine the ceiling and the ‘Final Judgement’. After the chapel, we moved quickly through the last hallways – mostly book sales and souvenirs – to get out into the gardens. 3 hours and Em had not complained the whole time! We definitely recommend the kids audioguide, even if they might seem a bit young.



We had lunch in the garden and relaxed in the sun for a while before heading back out to the street. Checking the line for Saint Peter’s Basilica, we found it stretching nearly as far as yesterday so we left to try and find ice-cream at reasonable price. Along the tourist street is always more expensive so one flavour was going for the price of three further out from the centre. We had a quick stop back at Castel Sant’Angelo for the playground which was far less crowded today then headed over Ponte Sant’Angelo – the bridge of angels. This is a 5 arch stone bridge with statues of angels on each pier along both sides and leads directly to the castle. We found our icecream on other side – 2 flavours for €2.00 – and sat down to eat on the steps which head down to the river beside the bridge.

Back over other bridge for one last check to see if the basilica line had shortened – it actually got longer and although it moves a lot quicker than the museum line, it would still be over an hour to wait so we called it a day without seeing inside. Just another reason to come back another day!

---