Rome, Italy Day 4

April 3, 2010

Day 4 Rome, Italy

We had an early start to our day today because we had bought Skip the Line tickets and they were for a set time…8am!!!  So off we went and even though we were early (7:45) there was a line in the reserved area as well as in the non reserved area.  It was crazy.  Lucky for us, as soon as the building opened, we were let in (super quick too) and now we had the museum (or museums I should say) to almost ourselves.  We didn't have to fight through a crowd at all.  It was amazing.  Almost in every room the ceiling was painted and all the ceiling paintings were outstanding.  At the same time almost all the floors had mosaics or some cool design and even the walls were sometimes outrageously painted.  And then there was all the stuff.  There was just so much to see.  It was overwhelming!  So awesome.  There were a few places where there was a hallway and along the entire hallway were Roman statues (both sides).  That was super cool.  As part of the Vatican Museum(s) we had access to the Sistine Chapel.   Now that was cool.  It is just amazing how much work was put into it.  We saw the very famous Creation of Man.  I would have thought it would be bigger than all the rest of the scenes, but it almost blended in.  But it was cool, none-the-less.  Another neat thing in the centre of the museums was a courtyard and right in the centre of the courtyard was this gold colored ball that looks like it is splitting apart with a smaller sphere inside.  We've seen a similar one (smaller) in Washington DC and Trevor says there is one in San Francisco.  There was no caption, no artist named and Trevor has a theory of what it is, but I'll let you ask him if you're interested.  Definitely stuck out like a sore thumb there though.  After 3 hours of wandering (you stop appreciating the amazing things after a while, to be honest) and after mailing a couple of postcards through the Vatican Post, we were off again.  When we left the Vatican Museum, we saw proof of what it would have been like had we not booked tickets in advance.  The line (at least 5 people thick) wrapped around 3 walls.  It was ridiculous!  I'm so glad I found the "Skip the Line" ticket option.  We needed to pick up our tickets for mass tonight and tomorrow and when we  went to the info place the lady said it was probably too late, but we could wait in line to get into St. Peter's Basilica, go through security and the office was in there.  The line for the Basilica was longer than to get into the Vatican Museums!  It was absolutely insane and there was no way we'd make it in time to get the tickets.  I was devastated.  This is what I had come to do, go to Easter Mass at the Vatican, and I wouldn't be able to without the ticket!  What would we do?  Thankfully I have a husband who makes miracles happen and knows how to handle me when I'm stressed and after sitting me down he went by himself and 10min later produced the tickets!!!  He's amazing!  Next, it was time to eat and after getting sucked in by a lady advertising on the street, we went to eat at her restaurant only to be ripped off.  It was awful.  They were going to charge us 14 Euro more than they had said!  I was really angry, but didn't show it too much.  I was hoping Italians were better than that, but I guess there's bad apples everywhere.  We then walked around a market we found and headed to the Cappuchin Crypts.  This was super cool and disgusting.  They took the bones of monks and decorated the walls of 4 little rooms.  They even had skeletons dressed up as monks and chandeliers made of bones.  Really amazing.  At the end of the little area is a sign that reads "As you are, we once were.  As we are, you will be".  Interesting thought.  It was back to the hotel after this for a nap before mass.  Mass was at 21:00 and we decided to back to the Vatican about an hour before it started. When we got there, there were a lot of people there already and after asking a few Vatican guards who didn't speak English where to go we figured out we should stand in line to get into St.Peter's Basilica.  Once through we quickly headed to get seats outside and I thought I was pretty good and had gotten great front row seats when all of a sudden the guards let through a bunch of people into the actual church.  At that point I realized that mass (and the Pope) was going to be inside and our tickets didn't give us priority seating inside.  It was a first come first serve and we didn't come soon enough to get the privilege of being inside.  There were TV screens and speakers so that we could be part of the action, but from the outside.  Many people tried to sneak in, but got caught, so we didn't push our luck.  We sat outside for over 3 hours!  It was really cold!  I was probably shivering for an hour!  The mass  was interesting, but not what I had had in mind when I reserved the tickets.  We ended up getting back to the hotel around 00:30 since the mass went until 00:00.  We had to go to sleep so that we could get back to the Vatican early for the next mass.