Vatican City - St. Peter's Square/Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel

Today was WOW Day! Up again at 6a.m. to get breakfast .When we boarded the bus we greeted Fabio our driver and Franco our tour guide for the Vatican. With names like that how could we believe we were anywhere but Rome.

Today we visited Vatican City for a tour of St. Peter's Basilica and the Square. We saw the Swiss guard and the amazing insides of the church. Huge times huge equals hugher.  

Let me list some things I remember and then I can let the pictures do the talking. 

1.There is no way to measure the distance from any one spot to another because of its size and difference of the altars, rooms, and size of sculptures. 

2. There are NO paintings in the Basilica but all pictures you see hanging are mosaics. The mosaics were created to replace the original paintings of Raphael , the painter, and other painters of the time who contributed to the church. Each picture in mosaics  is identical to the original. The originals  are stored in the Vatican art museum.these mosaics are at least 15 feet by 8 ft. 

3. The marble floors , the colonnades, the pillars, whatever ...... The majority of the materials used to create the inside of the Vatican are irreplaceable materials because they have come from many other parts of the world over the many centuries. Value... Worth.... Priceless. 

4. This pope does not live on the premises but at the monastery. He says he is not a king, he is of the people. He gave his usual Wednesday audience so today was quieter. 

Tonight at 6 P.M. We went to the Vatican Museum after hours so we were there for 2 hours on a private tour. They can have up to 35,000 people visit over the course of a few hours and have to close the museum. Of course the most famous part is  the Sistine Chapel. Too few words to describe the amazing. 

Will do a catch up page for info forgot but it's late and have an early call tomorrow for the Colosseum. Till then 

Ciao

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