14.06.18
Roma today! Early get up as it is over an hour and a half to get from the port into Rome itself. Neither of us realised how far the port was from Rome so we didn’t realise that we were going to lose more than half of our day to getting to and from. As everyone would know, you cannot possibly see all the attractions in Rome in one-day and you’ve got no chance when you’re only in the city for five hours, so we had talked the day before about just hitting one thing… I voted for the Sistine chapel so it was off to the Vatican for us!
To help us out, S had gotten organised the day prior and bought us fast track tix to go into the Sistine chapel at midday and for a bit we were both stressing that we might not make it to the Vatican on time! Bus dropped us off right in front of the Colosseum so we stopped on the way past for a few photies before jumping on the metro and heading across the city to see the Vatican. We made it to the mtg point with about a minute to spare so were able to head straight into the Vatican Museum and on our way to the Sistine.
En route we stopped and checked out some works by Raphael, heaps of statues from Roman and Greek times and some stunning frescoes and artwork that lines almost every corridor and roof space. Of particular note was the corridor that housed maps of Italy from the 1500s… spectacular cartography and the roof paintings, incredible! After much walking (and to be honest a case of “another spectacular painting”) we finally made it into the Sistine Chapel……
And, was I disappointed!
I mean… What a letdown!!! I had pictured some incredibly amazing looking chapel and all I got was smallish room filled to capacity with people all staring up at the roof. Sure it would have been near on impossible to paint a ceiling, lying on your back for years and years and get all the proportions accurate, but really?!?!? I was expecting some huge vaulted room with lots of gold on altars, big stained glass windows, big paintings by every master known to man etc etc.. Instead the Sistine is one smallish room, sides of the walls have painted curtains on half and the other half is pictures from either the new or old testament (I’ve already forgotten that’s how underwhelming it was for me) and the roof has the story of Genesis (the bit that Michelangelo painted).. Now the roof is impressive but really?!?!?!?!
After my incredibly underwhelming experience we exited right and headed into St Peter’s and then I was no longer underwhelmed! Now this is what I had come to the Vatican to see.. forget the Sistine, I should have headed straight for St Peters… I.t i.s i.m.p.r.e.s.s.i.v.e!!!! Massive vaulted ceilings, so much gold you almost get a bit blind, amazing stained glass and a huge edifice for St Peter.. AMAZING!… Almost makes the Church of the Holy Sepulchre look average.. almost! J After ogling the amazing-ness of St Peters we headed out to the main square to get some photies looking back at the Vatican…. My photie opportunities were quickly cut short as the heavens opened and down came the rain…
The Vatican square went from being covered in people to empty in less than five minutes.. Almost you would have thought someone had let off a bomb with how quickly everyone took off. I guess a drenching will do that every time! We stood around for about 15mins hoping that it would clear but when it looked like it wouldn’t we invested in two cheap and cheerful ponchos from a street seller (pink for me and bright orange for S) and headed out into the rain to get drenched and head back to the Colosseum to find our bus tour group.
On our way back we stopped off and bought a coffee and a humongous doughnut and munched our way back around the Colosseum and to the bus stop. Man it felt good to jump on the bus and take off our very soaked shoes! A good sleep and before we knew it the 90mins had flown past and we were back at the boat and enjoying dinner.
We rocked the night away (an afternoon siesta will always pick me back up) at the show firstly and later in the nightclub with about twenty other Spanish dancers! Pretty funny as we were the first to turn up and for quite a while the only two people rocking it out on the dance floor! Gotta love a cruise boat!!!! Headed to bed about 1.30 as we needed to get back up pretty early to head for Florence.. Roma a day to remember!