Friday, October 13, 2006

Our tour guide meets us at the hotel at 7:45 AM, and when we get to the Vatican Museum we can see why! there is already a big line to get in, 30 minutes before the door opens. Our guide tells us that the line usually grows to about 2 hours by 10 AM.

This museum is HUGE. We are only able to walk through a very small part of it, even though we spend the whole morning there. They no longer use the main entrance, but have built another one which can handle the 20,000 to 25,000 people a day that they often see here.

The old entrance had a set of circular stairs which are no longer used (there is an escalator now), a double helix with a ramp for going up, and a second ramp for going down.

The terrace overlooks the Vatican gardens, and has a view of St. Peter's in the distance.

No space here to describe the museum, except to say there are huge collections of every type of art imaginable. We spent hours just walking through it, before arriving at the Sistine Chapel. While the ceiling certainly is impressive, what really impressed me were the crowds. You couldn't take a step without pushing someone out of the way, and everyone (for some reason, :) ) was looking up and not at the other people moving around them. I could have spent a lot longer looking at the ceiling and walls, but the crowd got to me and I had to leave.