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=0=| This is the approach to the Vatican as you walk down the street from the closest bus stop. Once there you pass through a row of columns and are then in a big circle surrounded by columns as shown below. The rows of columns are all four columns deep, but from the center you can only see the front column. At the center of the circle is the fountain shown. This large circle is called St Peter's Square (even though it is clearly round) |
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| We got there about 8:15AM and only about 1/4 of St Peter's Square was filled with buses, but within 15 minutes it was mostly filled as you can see in this picture. Below on the left is a side view of St Peter's Square. Next to that is the other side of St Peter's Square which is the only non round section. It is the entrance to St Peter's Basilica, a sort of cathedral. |
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| As you enter the Basilica on your left is a hallway shown in the picture above on the left with a way cool statue that exends out from the wall. Sadly we weren't allowed to get any closer than that, so that is picture I could get (but the giant size image in the =0= might be interesting). In St Peter's Basilica there were all sorts beautiful halls, domes, paintings, statues, and such but we felt discouraged from taking pictures and so there aren't any pictures of the interior of the Basilica. After that we walked down a long walk toward the Vatican museum and saw two of the Swiss guards who protect the Vatican (shown above). We finally fount the entrance to the Vatican museum but the first thing is a long circular staircase up to the museum shown here. It was most beautiful, but quite tiring. Below on the left is view down from the top. Once at the top we learned that there was a six dollar or so fee for each person to actually get into the musuem. After our year in Korea we were in a pretty frugal frame of mind (having gotten used to very low prices) and almost balked at the fee, but fortunately decided that as we would only be in Rome once, that was not too outrageous and paid the fee. The museum was quite large and everything was truly amazing. Below on the right is an example of how the floors, wall and ceiling were all just gorgeous with amazing statues and paintings everywhere. |
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This page was last updated on January 1, 2006.
