In October 2017, I went on a trip to Rome and Athens, a journey to the sun and back to antiquity. This article is the first part, beginning the journey in Rome. You can find the other parts here:
Rome Part 2 |
Athens and Piraeus Vatican City
Within the city of Rome lies Vatican City, a city-state, the smallest country in the world. Of course, we wanted to see St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel in person; after all, it was relatively close to our hotel. I'd also looked up beforehand when the Pope makes public appearances. It turned out there's a service in St. Peter's Square every Wednesday morning. So, that was right at the beginning of our stay. To gain entry, you have to obtain free tickets in advance from the guards, the Swiss Guards. Unfortunately, they arrived too late for that the night before. But apparently, you could still attend the service standing without tickets. So, the next morning we went to St. Peter's Square. After we passed through security, a few cheers could be heard from the enormous crowd. As we got closer, we saw the Pope being driven around the square, waving. Amidst all the selfie sticks and enthusiastic visitors, I also tried to take a somewhat successful photo of the Pope. Then came the service, in which the Pope preached from the Gospel of Luke. He himself mainly spoke in Italian. The other languages were left to various bishops, who delivered the same text in increasingly different languages. After the service, the Pope bid farewell to dignitaries and guests, and the square slowly emptied. [embed]https://youtu.be/zOfzHlhZAEc[/embed] The day after the service, we made our planned visit to the Vatican Museum, including a visit to the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. We were glad we'd bought our tickets in advance. The line for people without tickets started a block away. We were able to bypass it and got in quite quickly. Inside, it was still quite crowded. We shuffled along with the crowd past many exhibitions. It turned out that, in addition to a lot of art, they also had mummies and other items from ancient Egypt. Right at the end of the museum tour came the Sistine Chapel. We had actually been waiting for that. But once there, everyone was mostly directed, and you weren't allowed to stand quietly anywhere to look or take a photo. Our hotel manager had given us the top tip to leave the Sistine Chapel through the group exit. This allowed us to go straight into St. Peter's, otherwise you would have had to go outside and enter another line to get into the basilica, which we were thankfully spared. [easy_panorama id="1001"] St. Peter's was truly enormous. And, of course, elaborately decorated. The week before our departure, we had watched the film Angels & Demons, which is set in Rome and takes place around the Vatican. It was fun to recognize the locations from the film in the basilica and elsewhere in the city. The light falling through the various church windows on this sunny day was another opportunity for me, as a photographer, to take advantage of. Plenty of photos were taken...
