This is near the entrance to get into the Vatican. To get into the Vatican you have to go through all kinds of metal detectors and security. It felt like I was getting onto a plane, because we had to put everything under scanners.
The entrance is a massive wall that surrounds the Vatican completely. This picture doesn't show how huge this wall really is... it stretches over the whole length of the Vatican. The Vatican City is actually a seperate city to Rome. They are not the same. The Vatican is it's own seperate idenity, and has it's own laws. For instance in order to get into the Vatican you have to wear proper church dress code. Meaning you can't show your shoulders or you knees.
Here is a little bit better view from the road.
This is in the courtyard of the Vatican. I feel as if Epcot might have stolen their night time show from the Vatican, because this globe of the world looks suspiciously similar to the one that is in Epcots night time show, but I still think that it is cool. I wish that I would have known about this statue at the Vatican before, because then maybe I would have enjoyed the Epcot show more.
This is inside of the Vatican musuem. It is just one of the MANY MANY rooms of statues that is in the Vatican.
I was trying to take a picture so that you could see how long the rooms go for. As you can tell the ceiling are pretty high, and the museum goes on for as long as you can see.
The floor is also beautifully decorated with different colors of marble. Every room has a different decoration. This is just an example of one of them.
Every Pope has their own crest. This is the crest of the late Pope, or the Pope that died five years ago.
As you can tell the ceilings are also decorated. This room looks like the three dimensional, but it is actually just an optical illusion. Everyone was shocked when we found this out, because it really looks like it's carved into the ceiling.
This is a statue that is dedicated to the Pope that decided to build the Vatican.
This is one of the MANY tapestries that are in the Vatican. They have several rooms full of them, and they are extremely big!!! They are meant to go ontop of a ceiling for decoration, insulation, and to help sound proof the room. Some of them are very detailed and extremely impressive when you consider how they were made. They were all made by hand on weaving machine, and some took numerous years to complete.
Here is another stretch of the Vatican called the Ceiling of Miracles. Each picture describes a different miracle that has happened in time.
Here are various maps of different times in history of Rome. As you can see these large maps go all the way down the hall in this section.
Thisis a map of Venice!! If you look at it you can tell how many breaks there are throughout the city which represent how many waterways go through it. As you can see most of Venice has water throughout it. I just thought this was an interesting perspective of Venice... especially after I just posted the blog about Venice telling you how people really use water to get around, and to transport people and goods.
This is the sign of the Pope that made the Vatican. He said that everyday that he was in office he wanted to be "busy as a bee" and keep improving the church. You see this symbol A LOT throughout the Vatican and even Rome.
This is the Ceiling leading towards the Sistine Chapel.
The Sistine Chapel was requested to be built by Pope Sisters… alas the name Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel itself is quite small. I was really surprised when I walked into it. Incase you don’t know the Sistine Chapel is the place where the cardinals vote on the next Pope. There have been 12 foreign Popes in Rome, or Popes that weren’t originally the cardinal of Rome. There has been one English Pope, one Dutch Pope, one Polish Pope, seven French Popes, and the current Pope is German. The reason why there are seven French Popes is because for a period of time Rome was not the location of where the Pope lived. For political reasons the Popes seat was moved to… you guessed it France! It took Michaelango four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and it depicts God creating the world in different stages. Pope Sisters wanted the ceiling of the church to be educational to people that walked into the church, and it was pretty cool to see. After many years the ceiling got very dirty, and about ten years ago it was restored by a Professor. It took the Professor 14 years to clean the ceiling, because he was being careful not to destroy it. Also in the Sistine Chapel there is a HUGE picture of Judgement Day. It shows people moving up to heaven, and others moving down to hell. Michealango based this picture off of Roman Gods, and showed people’s naked bodies in the picture. When the Pope’s Secretary first saw this painting when it was only half way completed he criticized the work and said that he did not think that it was proper that a fw people didn’t have clothes on. Michealango was so offended by this that when he created the devil in Hell at the end of the picture he remembered the Pope’s Secretary… and now the Devil has the Pope’s secretaries face! I guess that is a lesson not to tick off artists or you might appear in a non-attractive way in their future artworks. The Chapel was interesting, and the whole Vatican museum was pretty fascinating. I took quite a few pictures of it for everyone to see. I wasn’t allowed to take any in the Sistine Chapel though.
I was so happy because at the end of the Vatican tour we got to go into a gift shop that had all kinds of religious memorabilia and I was able to buy my grandma a Rosary and get it blessed by the Pope! It really made my day. I really hope that she likes it because I think it is really beautiful. My next objective is to post a blog on St. Peter's Cathedral!! I am hoping that I will be able to put it up now. I'm really hoping to blog about Florence and Monte Carlo today as well before I forget things!!
