Italy Day 12 - Vatican

Good evening, everyone. It's another beautiful day here in Italy and my trip to Rome was beautiful, as well. I first went to St. Peter's Basilica. Wow. Magnificant. As has been the case with so much of my stay here, there was too much to take in.

There were many different areas in the basilica. Each area more interesting than the last. The church is open and easy to manuever. I was free to browse and move around as I desired. It wasn't too crowded and everyone had plenty of space to focus on their area of interest.

The courtyard was huge and had fountains, statues, and interesting architecture to experience.

These last two photographs are in the Sistine Chapel - the end of the museum tour of the Vatican. I'm sorry to say that I found the Vatican to be too much sensory overload for my taste and way too crowded. Perhaps I went at a poor time. There is room after room of statues, tapestry, frescoes, paintings, etc. I had an audio guide and found it very helpful. I heard many interesting tidbits and facts about the origin and meaning to each room. It took a couple of hours just to walk through all of the rooms at the Vatican museum. After an hour or so, I started to feel guilty for walking past so much without being able to process it all. How can you look at everything in a room that has over 100 statues? Or notice all of the tapestry when each one is the size of a room? Or keep looking up at all of the ceiling paintings when the walls and floors are each artistic, as well? I think it might be nice to have about 2 days to walk through alone and really focus on some of the items. Everything, the ceiling, floor, and walls is fabulously done.

This is an idea of how crowded it was during my tour of the Vatican. This, as I stated earlier, is the Sistine Chapel. By the time I got here I was having an anxiety attack and could only think about getting out and having fresh air in my face. Isn't that sad?

After my time at the Basilica and Vatican, I walked for a couple of hours through the city once again. I am pleased to say that I no longer feel overwhelmed in Rome. I am comfortable with the drive into the outskirts of the city and using the bus system to get around. With the help of a detailed map, I can pretty much find where I want to go -- even though most of the streets do not have signs!

Tomorrow I plan to head west to the coast to explore that part of the country. I'll let you know how it goes.