Day 3 – Vatican

Waking up once again dreary and miserable, I had my usual half melon and set out a bit earlier to the Vatican city. Up until this point, I was under the illusion the Vatican was an island (“you ill-educated oik!” I hear you scream). I feel I’m not too far wrong however… the 30 foot plus walls that surround the Vatican might as well be impassable water. Queuing for 2 hours was actually alright, as the time passed with us simply playing 20Questions. Note to all players of this game, snake from the old nokia phones is possibly the best character to choose in the world. 

The Vatican only costs half price if you bring a student card, or if you are resourceful enough, any card with your face on it. Lunch isn’t too badly priced within considering you are essentially a captive audience. I’m no museum fan, I won’t lie, so I enjoyed the outside a lot more than the museums except a lot of it seemed to be very complicated to reach for the general public. I did the art tour of the area and went into the Sistine chapel, which was one of only two places I remember of that walk (The other being the hall of maps) and I must admit, apart from those two, my ill art-educated mind could not comprehend which art pieces were masterpieces or which just seemed drawn by a couple of students. I personally feel, if you put so many pieces of art together, the individual pieces lose their appeal to anyone not bordering on obsessive when it comes to paintings and without a vested interest in the place. I gathered that this was a lot of peoples opinions due to the cattle-like movement of tourists trying to get to the Sistine chapel as fast as humanely possible.

My favourite part was probably the pope building with all the different transport the pope had. This also includes the fiat popermobile which was the car in which Pope John Paul II was shot at by Mehmet Ali Agca. The pope apparently pardoned him in prison when he went to see him, and Mehmet kissed his finger (if all people were this forgiving!). In there is also a steering wheel present from Michael Schumacher (I thought that was quite cool.)

5 hours later, I was quite relieved to get out of the place. We found a nice gelato place which had lots of flavours (oreo and lemon drizzle is actually a decent combination) and grabbed some baguettes for the evening.

A beautiful courtyard with milkshake-drinking-woman for scale

Pope-mobile 5000

One of about 5 paintings which stood out to me

Ceiling paintings with an almost honeycomb like shape

St Peter’s Basilica – possibly the only photo to make it look shit.

Most executive/elaborate car park ever seen

A nice Roman Building

Cattle-like movement of people along a rather extravagant corridor

We arrived back at the campsite and played 2 euro games of pool for 2 pence (they are exactly the same size so they work in the machines 🙂 ) until it was midnight. Then got back for a decent nights sleep.

• art
• Interrail
• sistine chapel
• Travel
• vatican