Ah, the Vatican. Most people assume they are going to see the famous Sistine Chapel, but the Vatican tour is a very large museum that deserves at least half a day. It’s rather more organized and pristine than I like in a museum. I prefer the chock-full-to-the-rafters of the London British Museum or the London Victoria and Albert, but it is the Vatican after all. I would strongly advise some reading up on what there is to see before you go because there isn’t much info about it at the museum itself (some displays have descriptions but not all. Large rooms, such as the map room or tapestry room didn’t. Many statues did not even have a tag. Some displays had English, others were in Italian or Latin.)

In order to get a map of the place, I had to purchase the radio tour. If you don’t have the map, there are two corridors which are easily missed because they are side doors that require coming back to the main flow.

The Vatican excels in providing a few samples of some great stuff (rather than a lot of this and that ordered by, say, time-frame). They also excel in LARGE samples–large tapestries, large maps, large paintings in great halls. It’s all quite fascinating and worth the wandering, although as I’ve said in other posts and comments…the sheer number of people around you takes away a bit from the experience. It’s an orderly crowd, although I hear at the height of tourist season the guards will make sure the crowds keep moving forward, which might mean you don’t get to stay in a particular room as long as you might like (especially the Sistine Chapel.) Though I didn’t post a picture, the Vatican had one of the best preserved human mummies I’ve seen.

The mosaics in the second-to-last picture are made from tiny pieces of various colored tile, all put carefully in place to form a picture. Delicate work.

There are no pictures of the Sistine Chapel because they are not allowed, and the guard was standing next to me a large part of the time I was staring at the main painting behind the altar. :>) The Sistine is smaller than it appears on t.v. or magazines. It’s really an almost quaint chapel–it is not a grand basilica. The pictures on the walls and ceiling? Yeah, they are a wow. I read some of the history of the various paintings before going, so I enjoyed picking out the “face” of the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies, Biagio. Apparently Michelangelo didn’t like Biagio due to disparaging comments Biagio made about the painting so Michelangelo made Biagio a devil in the main painting. This sort of thing really adds personality to the whole thing (along with the fact that the flayed skin being held by St. Bartholomew is a self portrait by Michelangelo. Guess he felt pretty overworked by the whole gig.)

It’s a very nice museum, although more written information would have made it more accessible.