Vatican City, Part 1

One of the privileges of visiting Rome was bumping into monuments everywhere.  Even when we walked on an obscure, tiny road, we saw walls from the first century fenced off under government protection…

At least that’s what I concluded these were.  Validating my theory would have been an easier feat had we spoken Italian, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

After this, Karen and I locked up our bags and squeezed onto the crowded #64 bus, most famous for its pickpockets.  Thankfully with our vigilant eyes, we didn’t miss the stop or any bags.

There were numerous fountains in Rome powered by their well-designed aqueducts.  They were cool, refreshing, and best of all, free.  Braving the chance of E. Coli infection, Karen and I loaded it up and it tasted better than bottled water.

Since we were still alive after partaking the liquid of unknown origin, we took some pictures of St. Peter’s Square…

And St. Peter’s Basilica, where the Pope typically gave his speeches…

Unfortunately because we didn’t attend Sunday worship, I didn’t get a chance to catch the pope and question him on his infallibility.

After lining up for quite some time, we finally arrived at the entrance of the Basilica, where we encountered this Holy Door.  It’s opened on Christmas Eve every 25 years, when the pope bangs the door three times with some mystic silver hammer and the door opens for pilgrims to pass through.

I asked Karen to walk up for a picture, but to my dismay, Karen decided to take a century before looking forward, so I ended up with a Shampoo ad instead.

When she turned around for the normal shot, we were informed by some bored guards that we could not take pictures with the door.  “Only the door, not people”.  While I reasoned with him, I paved the way for hundreds of other tourists to take pictures behind him, but it certainly didn’t help my own efforts.  In the end it was a futile exercise.

So we entered St. Peter’s Basilica…

Despite the basilica being two football fields away and could hold 60,000 members, the basilica was designed to be intimate using optical illusions.  For example, the statue at the top was much bigger than the statue of the bottom, which made the place feel smaller.

Ironically I’d like some optical illusions around my house to make my house look bigger.

After finishing the Basilica tour, we decided to climb the dome.  We first took the elevator to the first level, then climbed some stairs to the second level.  Unfortunately the safety fence 10 feet tall slightly hindered our ability to exercise our photographic liberties.

Fortunately for us, through some ingenious creativity, circumvented the technical difficulty…

And we were rewarded with a shot of the basilica from the middle of the dome, thanks to my image stabilizing lens…

As we made our way to the upper dome, the path became psychodelic as the walls started twisting and the walkway shrunk alongside of the dome…

And when the rope appeared, we knew we were in for some serious staircase…

After squeezing through the final rat hole, we were greeted with a grand view of St. Peter’s Square.

After this, we decended what appeared to be a prop for Slimfast commercial, considering how slim you had to be to squeeze through.  Just look at Karen…

What’s at the end of this staircase?  What else happened in Vatican City?  How did we we end up watching a modern Chariot race?  Find out next time on my blog!  🙂