Day at the Museum: 5 Days in Rome - Part 5

by Alex in Europe, Italy

If you ask me, no trip to Rome is complete without two things. Fresh pasta, and a visit to the Vatican City. So, having made fresh pasta (and eaten plenty more in the city), we spent our last day in Rome at the Musei Vaticani.

This was a huge day for me - I've been fascinated with the Vatican City and wanted to visit it for basically as long as I can remember. I love visiting the holy sites of different religions, and the Vatican is probably the holiest site for over a billion people worldwide. On top of that, the little independent nation inside Rome is also home to some of the world's largest and rarest art and artefact collections - and as a pair of history nerds, the chance to see even a tiny fraction of that collection was too good for us to pass up.

Plus, there's a giant rotating bronze ball!

Learning from our experience at the Colosseum, we made sure to arrive early - a full hour before the museum actually opened, as it turned out. There was a queue when we arrived, but thankfully, it wasn't very long - an hour later, as we were going in, I looked back and saw that the queue had at least tripled in size!

Technically, entering the Vatican City from Rome involves crossing an international border, and it felt like it. Entering the lobby of the museum, we faced more security than at some airports. Luckily, we were among the first to go into the museum that day, so we were able to make it through the scanners and metal detectors and X-rays quickly and without any difficulty.

Once we were inside, we decided to head directly to the Sistine Chapel, to try and get there before as many tourists as possible. Thankfully, the Vatican Museums are very well signposted in clear English and Italian, and the path to the Sistine Chapel follows a path straight through the Museums, so even our legendary lack of direction couldn't get us lost.

Understand, when I refer to the Vatican Museums, that is exactly what they are - museums. The route takes you on a winding path through a succession of villas and mansions, each displaying a particular Pope's collection of artworks, be they marble sculptures, threadbare tapestries, modern and postmodern religious works, or entire rooms covered in frescoes painted by the likes of Rafael and, of course, Michelangelo.

Finally, we got to the Sistine Chapel. Like a lot of famous and photogenic works of art, photographs are strictly forbidden. There was even a stern-faced guard on duty, scowling with folded arms as he helplessly watched scores of tourists raise their cameras and phones to the heavens, in clear defiance of the laws of man.

After we made our rounds through the Museums, we still felt like our visit to the Vatican was incomplete, so we headed around to what has to be the most recognisable part of the entire country, St Peter's Square. For the record, doing the museums before visiting the Piazza was definitely the right way around, because from 2 blocks away, we were set upon by hawkers offering us special prices and 'skip the queue' passes - most, if not all, of which were probably bogus. Being able to deflect them with a wave of our already-used tickets was a wonderful feeling.

Coming into the Vatican at St Peter's is a completely different experience from entering the Museums. Rather than massive lines and security checkpoints, the entry is completely open to the public, for the faithful and tourists alike to come and go as they please. Entrance to the actual St Peter's Basilica is more securely controlled, but considering that when we arrived the line was 5 hours long and growing steadily, we decided to pass it up.

What I found most remarkable about the Square was the respect it held from those around. I don't mean the tourists - there were tank tops and shorts and public displays of affection as far as the eye could see, same as any monument. No, what struck me was that while we were in the bounds of the Square, we only saw one selfie stick man.

At first, I thought that the lack of hawkers was a legal mandate, but while the priests and guards nearby frowned at the salesman, they made no move to stop him. Instead, it seems that there is an unspoken agreement amongst the many peddlers of maps and tours and refreshments and souvenirs and selfie sticks - an understanding that some places just deserve more respect than a tourist's Euros are worth.

Once you cross the border, however...

If you'd like to read more of our 5 days in Rome, click here!

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