An Englishman, a Northern Irish woman and a Priest walk in to the Vatican...

20/09/14

After our busy day we decided to have a bit of a lazy morning and naturally I woke up early... Once again our breakfast was excellent and after some lazing around/refusing to get ready, we made our way to the Vatican! Rory is the first to admit that he doesn't know much about art so we decide that the best way to make the most of our time in the Vatican was to get a tour.

The tour began by going through the Vatican museums. I wasn't sure what to expect, but there's an awful lot inside those museums, so much so that if you spent one minute at each exhibit it would take you twelve years to see everything! I certainly wasn't up for that so we happily meandered through with our tour. I'm not an art officiando so there is very little I can tell you about what I saw. There were some beautiful paintings, tapestries and sculptures. The rooms were impressive and wouldn't look out of place in a royal palace. The buildings and gardens were beautifully designed and I bet the Pope loves walking around all this great stuff that he kind of, sort of, owns.

I quite liked the Stanze di Raffaello, or the Raphael Rooms. In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned a young and unknown Raphael to decorate his private apartment, which the 25 year old did incredibly well and which established him as a rising star. So much so that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was named after him!

But he's not the only TMNT in the Vatican. There's also Michelangelo whose Sistine Chapel is not only the “jewel in the Vatican crown” but also home to two of the world's most famous works of art - his ceiling frescoes and his Last Judgement. The 800 square metre ceiling took four years to paint which sounds like quite a long time but when you see the detail and realise that Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter is seems pretty snappy. Apparently he really didn't want to paint the ceiling but the Pope kept asking and he eventually said yes. He might also have been swayed by the 3,000,000euro pay check but who knows!?

I also feel a bit wick for the other artists who painted the wall frescos, these paintings are pretty great but everyone forgets about them because Michelangelo is such a big deal! We also had a nosey around St Peter’s Basilica which was very impressive, even though we didn’t see Tom Hanks. 

After some selfies (is it bad to take selfies outside churches?) we headed back to the Pantheon and finished the evening with some excellent food.