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Today we took the ship's excursion into Rome for a tour of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and some free time in Rome itself. Rome is over one and a half hours from the port where the ship docked, Civitavecchia. There are more than 7km of galleries in the Vatican, needless to say we saw a very small portion of the city today. It was incredibly crowded. Rome is always crowded and today was record breaking busy according to our guide, 28,000 visitors expected in the Vatican Museum. We had a great tour, if a bit exhausting. It's hard work watching where you're going, where the guide is in he crowd and also trying to admire the amazing art we were surrounded by.
You can't take photos in the Sistine Chapel, it's a Holy place. these posters show what you would get to see. Michael Angelo spent 4 years painting the season - he never left during those 5 years.
These statues are headless because the original heads had eyes made of gemstones and so the heads were taken by robbers.
Statue inside with eyes intact.
Below is one of the most interesting ceilings - this is a flat ceiling, painted to look like it's sculpted. Really hard to see that it's not three dimensional when you're there, absolutely stunning.
St Peter's Square
On our way to explore Rome - thunder storms and heavy rain begin
We did our best to stay positive and enjoy Rome and we left the ship at 8:30 am by 1pm when we left St Peter's Square we were hungry. We found an outdoor, thankfully covered by an awning, restaurant and had lunch. The heavens opened and it began to rain, and then to pour. By the time we spent a couple hours walking the many narrow and somewhat confusing streets in a torrential downpour - we were done. The sun game out just as w headed back to our meeting point. Unfortunately, some of our group were late getting back and we ended up leaving Rome a bit late, arriving back at our ship sometime after 7pm. Very long day, indeed!
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