The Most Miserable and Most Rewarding Day to Date

Today I did something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. I visited the Vatican museums, perhaps the world's best collection of art from antiquity. I saw with my own eyes the Sistine Chapel, paintings by Raphael, Michaelangelo and a host of other important names, and scupture dating back as far as 50BC (maybe before). If I haven't mentioned it yet, all of my big "site seeing" tours have been guided by a man hired by my professor named Jeffrey. Jeffrey is an American who has lived in Rome for the last 28 years, and he makes his living giving tours to various groups who pay him. His knowledge of the history of the city is VAST and there seems no question he cannot answer.

The bad news from today was that we waited in the hot sun for 2 1/2 hours to get into the museums. As Jeffrey said, he has been here almost 30 years and has "never seen a line that long" before. It was miserable, I used up all my water way too early, we were late for our special "behind the scenes" tours (which turned out to be amazing...they accomodated our lateness) and at one point I thought I was going to pass out. The best bottle of water I've ever had in my life was had today when we finally exited the Sistine Chapel and went to the cafeteria to fuel up. All that being said, if I had it to do again, I would definitely do it (but I would bring WAY more water and sunscreen).

Of course, I took a hundred or so photos while in the museums and there is no way for me to share all of those with you here, so I'll pick out a few highlights. This photo was taken at our first "behind the scenes" special tour we got with Jeffrey as our guide. This is a spiral ramp designed by Bramante, a very famous architect/sculptor from the late 15th century. This "stair" as they call it (though it really is a ramp) was commissioned by the Pope as a sort of special entrance to the building to which it is attached. It was meant to be traversed on horseback, a fact that is accentuated by the fact that the ramp is very steep and a little difficult to just walk up and down. Nevertheless, once to the top you are rewarded with amazing views of the city and close-up views of part of the medieval crenelations in parts of Vatican City.

Another "behind the scenes" look we got was in this special hall of busts and heads - sculptures of all of the emperors of Rome prior to the Vatican's taking of the reigns of government (Rome has only been a unified, non-religious state since 1870). Here, we see heads of every emperor of Rome and, curiousely, after Marcus Arelius they start wearing beards. Someone asked Jeffrey about this and he said it must have be simply a fashion decision...he had no other knowledge of why that was true. He's got a bit of a sense of humor. Its nice.

The last photo I want to share is by Raphael, and extremely influential late 15th/early 16th century painter who tragically died at only 37 years of age. Like many celebrated painters from his time period, Raphael was at one time the Vatican architect, though many of his works have subsequently been demolished. There are a series of rooms in the Vatican called the "Raphael Rooms" with which I've been fascinated. This is a very large painting of his that I got to see today called the Transfiguration. You should click on the link here to find out more about the painting. Its much larger than I expected it to be, perhaps as much as 8 feet wide and 14 feet high. I don't know, I just really like it. I'm not sure why, but his style is so smooth and soft I find this particular piece really nice to look at. I'm so happy I finally got to see it in person.