Day 4: Vatican City

Within Rome is another city...yes a sovereign state with its own postal service and currency, Vatican City. We booked ahead online and avoided the huge lines into the museum...we also chose to go Wednesday morning which is when the Pope addresses his flock in St Peter's Square...good move, cause while everyone is there looking at the Pope, we are making our way through a relatively quiet museum.

 

 It's very big, and the map isn't very helpful, so we spent a lot of time doing this...

 ...and listening to our audio guide!

 It would seem that through the ages the Pope's have remained popular with the people and with many wealthy leaders...

 ...thus they get a lot of presents! All these presents are kept in the Vatican Museums for the general public to view. Now if you remember your history lesson from the last post you would have noticed that Egypt was once part of the Roman Empire...hence this little mummy...

 This is someone important...

 ...a room of tapestry...

 Dripping in gold...

 ...a room of maps...

 ...Such detail! Everywhere you look!

 Ruffael was another Ninja Turtle, and famous artist with whom we became acquainted with in Rome...

 ...he did this...

 Thank goodness for seats around the museum ... my feet had only just begun to shrink back to normal size, and regular rests were a must! (Notice the essential water too!)

 A little taste of Da Vinci... (Not a very nice one).

 After the Raffael rooms we entered the Sistine Chapel and got to marvel at Michaelangelo's work. (Another ninja turtle). It was amazing, but i'm not sure what all the fuss was about...we couldn't take pictures in there, but it didn't feel like a chapel to me!
This was one of my favourite paintings in the museum...

 These are the famous steps that lead out of the museum...

 Designed by Da Vinci it looks like they only go one way... infact the concentric circles have opposing paths...

 By the time we left the museum we noticed our camera battery was quite low... (Always check before you leave in the morning!) We still had St Peter's square and Basilica to go! Luckily we needn't have worried as we got through the rest of the day without the camera failing us!

 St Peter's Basilica is HUGE! Like MASSIVE! Under that brown four poster thing are St Peter's bones as declared by a Pope a few generations back...

 Being its own state means it has its own police/guards...check out what they get to wear!...

 After all that we headed back to Trident in Rome for a spot of shopping and to grab some pics on the Spanish Steps...

 In Australia if you see a 'smart' car, it's rare, and laughable... well everyone drives tiny cars in Rome...and you can see why...

 That night on the 'Lonely Planet's' recommendation we headed to the oldest pizzeria in Rome...this place was older than Australia!!

The pizza was great! But not so much for an American tourist who asked the waiter "Do you have anything with pineapple on it?"
oh dear.