Vatican Museum

This Sunday, I woke up at 6.30 am, but not to visit the flea market again. Instead, I went with several of my friends to see the Vatican Museum. The Vatican Museum is free on the last Sunday of every month, but as a result it is also really crowded. Thus, we arrived at the museum entrance at 8.00 am, an hour before the museum opened. Luckily, the line was not very long at this point- I think that this might have been as a result of the drizzly weather and the fact that it was the last Sunday in January. After the museum opened at 9, we only had to wait 15 minutes before we got into the museum.

The Vatican museums are both beautiful and vast- their collections are housed in the former papal apartments, so that even the rooms where the art is are beautiful. Their collection spans from ancient Egyptian mummies to modern religious art, but the heights of the collection are the Greek and Roman statues and Renaissance artwork. My favorite room was the gallery of maps, where the walls of a long hallway were painted with detailed frescoes of all the regions of Italy. The entrance of the room begins with southern Italy, and works its way north as you walk through the room. As you approach the exit, there is a beautiful map of Venice on the right.

We spent over 4 hours in the museum and I still don't think that we got to see everything that the museums had to offer. However, we did manage to see all of the significant highlights, including Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Raphael's School of Athens and The Dispute. (The bottom photos is us in front of the School of Athens). It was amazing to see the paintings of such Renaissance masters up close. I especially enjoyed seeing the Sistine Chapel, which really makes you appreciate Michaelangelo's true genius in its creation. Unfortunately, they do not allow you to take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel. I'm glad that I got the chance to tour the Vatican Museum so early in my stay here, because now I know that I will definitely have to return here several times before I leave!

We exited the Museum through the Sistine Chapel, which let us out right next to St. Peter's Basilica. We thus took the opportunity to go inside St. Peter's Basilica as well as the tombs below the church. Although part of the church was closed off for a service, it was wonderful to tour the massive basilica and to view the tomb of Pope John Paul II in the tombs under that church!