Hello. That’s me! 👆 (The one on the left)
I haven’t had much time to post because I have been in Rome! And for anyone who has spent a few days in Rome will know, it’s pretty FULL ON! My days have been jam packed with sightseeing, all day, every day. When I haven’t been sightseeing, I have been exhausted. After four days, my feet feel like concrete blocks. This is by far, the most tiring city. There is SO much to see. Which isn’t in the least bit surprising, seeing as its Roman history stretches back over 2000 years! I have crossed off so many things off the bucket list, that I can’t dwell too much over my bruised and battered feet.
Firstly, I want to mention a once in a lifetime experience in that I had yesterday. I want to scream it from the rooftops! I saw........wait for it......THE POPE! Yes, that’s right! I saw the closest living person to God. Let’s just think about that for a second..
The tiny, white figure you see in the photo, stood on the stage, is Papa Francesco. (Aka The Pope). Alright, alright it is a shocking photo! You can barely make him out in the photo, but please bare in mind that we were In a crowd, at The Vatican, with thousands and thousands of people! He said prayers for the people of Mexico. He also said prayers for family members and friends and he blessed the crowd. Vatican City is in fact, it’s own country, so you can imagine the scale of this place! Here is a photo of Vatican City, this was taken from as high as you can climb, in the dome of St. Peters basilica.
We were blown away by his presence. So much so that we filled our bottles with holy water and headed to the Vatican museum and Sistine chapel. Both can be entered on one ticket, costing 22 euros. The Vatican museum, reminded me very much of The Louvre, in Paris (I do get around). Its architecture is as beautiful as some of the artwork it displays. Miles of marble flooring, towering archways and gold gilded ceilings fill this entire museum. It boasts one of the most extensive collections of religious artworks in the world. Some of the pieces were exceptional, we questioned a few times if they were photographs and not paintings. Baring in mind some of these were made hundreds of years ago, that is impressive! Even for someone like me, who isn’t very well educated on art. My favourite collection was the ancient Egyptian. It had so many artefacts, from thousands of years ago. It even had a mummified corpse, which had its finger nails still intact. Of course, I didn’t take a photo, out of respect. But, I did take lots of photos of the ceilings in the museum!
After the Vatican museum, we went into the Sistine chapel, but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any photographs, which is just as well really as I spent most of the time walking around looking up at the painted ceiling and walls. As I said, both of these are included in the ticket price for the Vatican Museum, after viewing these two, I highly recommend visiting St. Peter’s basilica, which is next door to the museum. It is free to enter. There is a fee if you wish to climb to the top of the dome, which we chose to do and cost 6-8 euros, depending on whether you choose to take the elevator or stairs. Please bare in mind that their is over 500+ if you choose a no elevator ticket!! I am physically fit (I hike a lot) and I am ok with small spaces (not so great with heights, you will hear me mention that often in my posts) and even I struggled with the stairs. As you climb up the dome, the ceiling slants, so you are climbing sideways, the further up you get, the thinner the staircase and it spirals extremely tightly. Add lots of tourists into those stairs and I did struggle with it, something which doesn’t happen to me! A German man walking down the stairs in front of me said 'I feel drunk' and I admitted that I did too. It made you feel very disorientated. Once we reached the top inside, I struggled with the height anyway, but I’m glad to say that I did it and I made it, even though I felt like I was falling through the church. This is a photo of the inside of the dome.
If I were to visit again, I would probably just skip the dome climb. The church itself is so magnificent that you don’t really need to do anything extra. I mean, St Peter is buried here (God’s right hand man, who holds the keys to heaven) Michelangelo painted the incredible masterpiece inside the dome and the only statue that he signed is in this church. Also, every single Pope who has ever lived, is buried in the crypt below the church. So you can see why It is the most important church for Roman Catholics. No photos will ever capture the scale of this place, their are markings on the floor sizing up the other church’s and cathedrals around the world and St. Paul’s Cathedral was barely even halfway on the markings!!! It’s HUGE!!! But it feels so close, because of how it was designed. It fills you with warmth and light. Even if you aren’t religious, like me, you can still appreciate everything about it and feel comforted inside it.
There is so many other places we have visited in Rome. I did tell you that we have been none stop and I wasn’t joking! We have visited The Coliseum, you can’t visit rome without visiting here! Again, I couldn’t capture the size of this place. You just have to visit! If you buy a ticket for here, you also get entry into the Roman forum and palatine hill.
I think that you get so much for your money at these three sites. Which, basically are the ruins of the Roman city. Ceaser was cremated here. There are so many ruins to walk through, I recommend a rick steeves audio guide as you walk along. We spent the whole day seeing these three places. In the evening, we went to Ceasers Forum light tour, which is a fairly new thing to see and do in Rome. But I highly recommend it! It is a tour of Roman ruins, with a difference, I’ve never seen anything like it. You walk through the ruins with headphones on and they project videos onto the ruins, to show you what it was like 2000 years ago. After a while, I actually felt like I was in a Roman city and Ceaser was the emperor of my city. Obviously, this is done at night time. Walking underneath the stars, to music and a soothing voice talking you through it, it was emotional. I started to well up! It is such a unique experience! It should be on everyone’s must see lists when visiting Rome!
This is the Altare Della Patricia, which is located right next to Ceasers Forum. It's particularly magnificent at night! Again, you have to see it with your own eyes to appreciate the magnitude of this giantic building!
We also visited the Trevi fountain, in the evening. After reading about the legends, I threw coins into the water and made a wish. When in Rome!
As well as sightseeing we have eaten so much pizza. I have had some the best pizza I have EVER eaten and I've eaten so much of pizza in my time. If you are ever in the area, aim for any pizzeria with a long queue, this means they are highly recommended by locals and they will hook you up with some good slices!
Overall, we have spent four days here in total, a lot of people would say thats not enough time. I would agree if you want to take things slower and spread the sights out over more days. We have crammed so much into those four days, as we are backpacking and on a budget! Just to give you an idea on how much we have seen, here is the map and circled are the places we have been too! (Not including the pizza places)
I must get back to watching 'Roman Holiday’ so many firsts for me on this trip!
Peace out
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