Rome (Part 2)

We spent our last full day in Rome at the Vatican City, exploring St Peters Basilica, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.  It's one of those must-do activities for anyone who visits Rome and while it was a bit tempting to "just say we did it" it was extraordinary. 

The highlight was the Sistine Chapel, where I managed to take a few photos before realising it was forbidden (I avoided being told off, unlike others).  The ceiling, painted by Michelangelo, is something that has to be seen to grasp fully.  I had one of those ‘ah-ha’ moments, when I connected several iconic images with the Sistine Chapel.  I've included a few photos including one of David fighting Goliath, and one of the main wall of the chapel.  When we saw the image of David about to deliver the coup de grace to Goliath, John connected it more to the recent executions in Syria than anything else.  The aim of the Chapel is to take you to a different, higher place and there we were picturing Goliath in an orange jumpsuit - Michelangelo would not have been impressed.  Mind you, his main wall has a fair focus on hell and the punishment of sinners - it's darker than you might expect.

We were lucky there weren’t too many people visiting, so we were able to admire the chapel without being ushered through quickly.  St Peters Basilica was busier - when we arrived there were a few hundred people, part way through our visit, there were thousands.  St Peters is vast - bigger than any other Catholic church, and I daresay, any church at all.  It was erected on the site where the disciple Peter was killed.  It’s designed to impress and it certainly does.  We decided to take the audioguide because I wanted to understand what I was looking at.  It was thorough to say the least...after an hour and a half, we were only two-thirds of the way through the tour.  The ins and outs of some of the political manoeuvrings of some of the later popes may have been lost on us.

St Peter's has a peculiar feeling to it - thousands of people moving through it like it's the Trevi Fountain, with large tour groups of Americans,  Chinese, Germans, and everyone else following guides with flags,  and at the same time there are large numbers of pilgrims and devout Catholics who are obviously having a profound religious experience in what is of course a very holy place.  It's a strange mix.  

Aside from the vastness of the church, the highlight for me was seeing the Pieta, Michelangelo's sculpture of Mary holding Jesus after he was brought down from the cross.  It was the only piece of his work that he signed.

In order to get to the Sistine Chapel, you walk through the Vatican Museums, which holds one of the most impressive collections of work in Italy.  We started with the Egyptian collection, followed by ancient Roman, Greek, renaissance art and modern art.  The Museums include 54 galleries, of which the Sistine Chapel is the last.  There is a reason it's the fifth most visited museum in the world.