Rome Sightseeing
Reschedule due to the Festa Nationale de Republica
Marco had explained yesterday that the schedule for today was going to be messed up because of the
"Festa Nationale de Republica", the national celebration of the republic.
This was going to include a parade in the morning down the street that the forum and Colosseum are on.
As this would have normally been the first place we went in the morning, it will require him to come
up with a plan to get everything in, and work it around all the festivities.
As you can see from the itinerary on day three, the included sightseeing normally takes place in the morning,
and the optional excursion would normally follow that.
However, the new schedule will be as follows:
- The people choosing the optional tour that includes the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel would be doing that portion of the tour first thing in the morning;
- Then the rest of the group would meet up with us as we leave the Sistine Chapel to go to the included part of the tour to St. Peter's Basilica;
- The people taking the optional would then leave on the bus for the rest of the excursion;
- We would meet up with the rest of the group again as we made our way to the Forum and Colosseum.
Normally, Marco would have just scheduled the optional excursion for the following morning,
before leaving for Sorrento.
However, that would be Sunday morning, and the Vatican Museum is not open on Sunday.
This will not be the only time that Marco has to pull off some magic, as you will see.
This is another reason that I was glad that we decided to take the Sistine Chapel optional excursion.
Normally, there would be the included sightseeing in the morning, and then you would have the rest of
the day to do what you want if you didn't take the optional excursions.
However, the modified schedule would mess that up somewhat, and give you smaller chunks of free time.
Rome Sightseeing
Those of us signed up for the Sistine Chapel optional excursion had 06:00AM wake-up calls, breakfast at 06:30AM and had
to be on the bus by 07:00AM. The few people who did not sign up for this optional excursion had a later wake-up call and breakfast.
One thing that Marco marveled at, and surprised me also, was the punctuality of everyone on the tour, right from the
beginning. And it carried through to the end of the tour as well.
Antonio brought us across the city to the Vatican area. We then followed Marco as quickly as possible to the entrance
that tour groups use to enter the Vatican Museums. Getting up early and hurrying to the entrance paid off, as we were
the third tour group in line. You can see from the picture how close we were. We had to wait around for a while, but
as we waited, many more groups showed up. The line quickly extended around the corner behind us, and we can only
imagine how far beyond that.
Whisper
As we waited, our tour guide for the day's tour in Rome, Carlo, arrived, as did a group of people distributing the whisper devices.
These were like little walkie-talkies with earphones. We hung the unit around our necks and put the earphones in our ears.
The tour guide had a similar unit with a microphone. These devices worked pretty well as long as you were relatively
close to the tour guide. As we made our way through the museums, we were somewhat strung out at times. When you were near
the end of the line, it was a little hard to hear the tour guide. And if he was talking while he was around a corner
from you, you could not hear him at all. Later in the day, he had problems with his, and we gave up on them all together.
But they were indispensable when we were in the Sistine Chapel. There were people in there constantly shushing the crowd
to keep the noise down, but the tour guide could still talk softly and we could all hear him.
Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
I am certainly not going to try to describe what we saw here. We did see the Gallery of Maps and the Tapestry Gallery,
as well as some areas that were used as living quarters at various times. We could take pictures in the museums as long
as we didn't use a flash.
These pictures were taken as we made our way from the museums to a living area of one of the Popes.
In the picture on the left are some military planes that were part of the festivities going on in the city.
Then came the Sistine Chapel. That's Randy's picture on the left. At this time of year, the place was quite crowded. Lots of people talking all at once.
As I mentioned, there were people there whose job seemed to consist of trying to keep the noise down.
We entered the chapel through a door at the altar end of the chapel. The tour guide started by talking about the paintings
lining the area about two-thirds of the way up the side walls.
After they were finished, the ceiling was just blue with gold stars.
Then the Pope forced Michelangelo to paint the ceiling, but did not dictate the theme. The ideas were
all his. The guide began talking about the ceiling at this end on the chapel, then moved to the other end of the room
to talk about that portion of the ceiling. Then he moved back to the altar end of the room to talk about the wall
behind the altar, which Michelangelo was made to come back and paint about 23 years after he finished the ceiling.
No pictures could be taken in the chapel. Randy took this picture of the area where we exited the Sistine Chapel, made our way to
St. Peter's Basilica and met up with the rest of the group.
St. Peter's Basilica
Once we left the Sistine Chapel, we met up with the rest of the group and began the portion of the included tour of St. Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo designed the transept, altar area and dome of this building. Here we could take photos even with flash. One thing that was very impressive was that there are no paintings in the Basilica. All of those images that look like paintings are actually mosaics.
The tour of St. peter's Basilica started to the left as we entered, and went on around until we came to the Pieta, which is to the right of the front doors.
As we left St. Peter's Basilica, we saw two Swiss Guards controlling access to a drive to the left of the Basilica.
These were the only Swiss Guards we saw while we were there.
We spent a few minutes in St. Peter's Square. You can see the chairs that were set up for the festivities that
were going to be taking place here later in the day.
On the left is St. Peter's Basilica, and on the right is the right side of St. Peter's Square and a fountain.
Then we went to a small restaurant where we had a light lunch and a short break on our own. Karen and I
walked back to St. Peter's Square to the Vatican post office. There she bought a postcard and a Vatican
stamp and mailed it to herself, so that it would have a Vatican postmark on it.
Please go on to the next page to see the rest of Day 3.
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