The Vatican

Hello All!

Well Rome has been an amazing way to start off this trip. After the first few days I was sure that my mind was full of history, but I hadn’t even gotten started. It is very similar to the Italian culture of food. You think that you are full, and in reality you have something like 7 more courses coming your way. Seeing Rome is like that, but there is more like 7000 courses and you can’t even try to cram it all in. You just have to enjoy the experience and keep taking as much as you can. On our last day in Rome we went and toured the Vatican Museum.

Seeing the Vatican Museum was amazing. It is home to some of the world’s most famous artwork. We walked through countless rooms full of sculptures and paintings. The Vatican museum has an average of 12,000 tourists go through it per day. We were definitely not alone. I would have loved to pause and take more of the artwork in the museum, but you can literally be there for weeks with all of the art that is there.

At the very end of the museum is the Sistine Chapel, which has a large number of paintings by Michelangelo, including his famous The Last Judgement. The security was very adamant about us not taking pictures, but somehow my camera went rogue and starting capturing beautiful photographs. Bah… hasn’t been the first time that has happened. Oh well, guess I am just stuck with some of these compromising photos that I have to share.

(Michelangelo The Last Judgment)

At the end of our tour we walked through St. Peter’s Basilica. This is the most elaborate of all the churches that we visited. The reason that this church is so famous is because it is built over the burial place of the apostle Peter. The Catholics believe that Christ gave Peter the keys to build his church, and that he was the first Pope.

Overall this was a great end to a great journey in Rome. It is crazy to think that that was only our first leg of the journey and that we still have 7 weeks to go. I am pretty dang excited! We are in Naples now and there will be more updates soon.