We woke up to rain, so we grabbed umbrellas and raincoats and headed out. I showed the group how the metro worked (very easy) and we headed to the Vatican. We got out and walked several blocks, and hit a HUGE crowd/line of people. Since we had reservations we did not get in the line, but when we got to the doors, there were tons of groups WITH reservations all trying to get in and go through security. Once we got in, there were TWO TONS of people in the atrium milling around. I finally paid for our tickets and passed them out to the group. I had read somewhere that tours were 1 hour, so I (foolishly) thought...we'll plan to spend 1 1/2 hours inside and meet again at the exit to move on.
What actually happened...David and Delaney and I managed to stay together through well over 40 rooms of exhibits with thousands of people pressing against us. We made it to what we thought was the exit about 10 mins after our designated time and felt like we had run through all the exhibits. We had met up with two other members of the group toward the end. No other member of the group was at our meeting place. I knew we had a problem. I went looking for other possible exits and found all except 3 members of the group at another exit. The group reported that the three missing ones had missed the Sistine Chapel and had looped back around to look again. I sent David and the rest around to eat their picnic lunch at St Peters square while one of the group waited with me. After 30 mins we gave up and joined the rest of the group. By some miracle we caught sight of the 3 missing members walking in the square just before we were planning to move on. An additional piece of luck was that the rain stopped and the sun came out.
This complex of buildings is the Vatican Museum. The Sistine chapel is the closest to us laid out east to west. You wind through hall after hall from the far end to the chapel, then back through more long halls and exhibits back to the entry.
People were so oblivious to others around them. This press of camera wielders came through the doors with a huge crowd behind them, but the stopped dead in their tracks to snap photos instead of stepping in and to the side to let others in. I was so sick of crowds after just one hour I was ready to run screaming from the building.
This room was the cartography room with maps of different regions in Europe all over the walls. You can get a sense of the size of the hall...
Much of the flooring was simply polished marble, so this beauiful mosaic floor really caught my eye.
This was a window shutter.
Most of the exhibits were classic, but some of the last rooms had contemporary art. This wood carving was pretty neat.
This 'dining room' sized table has beautiful marble inlays!
Every room had beautiful paintings - walls and ceilings.
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