Rome - The Vatican

   We're staying in a bed and breakfast that's a converted 3 bedroom apartment, but here's no-one else currently staying so we've got the place to ourselves. And it's only about 5 minutes walk away from the Vatican - we can see the dome of St Peter's from the kitchen window. So we've managed to see quite a bit of comings and goings in the holy city.

When we first got to St Peters Square Rachel let out a whoop of glee and chased the pigeons round and round, and then started running after a small group of nuns until I caught up with her and held her back. Terrible habit, that.












At the base of the stairs leading to the basilica in St Peters Square are two statues of St Peter and St Paul. This is St Paul with his sword, and behind it is the statue of Jesus and one of his disciples.




St Peters Basilica is HUGE. Outrageously enormous. It's really hard to imagine the amount of manpower that would have been required to build it. The 'four-poster-bed-thing' in the middle of the photo is a canopy above the altar which sits above the remains of St Peter himself.










Just to illustrate how large the place is I've enlarged one portion of the previous photo. The little dot the red arrow points to is a person walking around the inside of the base of the dome.














































   Rome has a law that no buildings may exceed the height of St Peters. In other words the best view in the entire city is from the cupola which sits atop the dome of St Peters Basilica. So we went up to see for ourselves. Up a never ending spiral staircase to the roof of the basilica and then into the interior of the church again, this time in at the base of the dome to view the people inside swarming like ants far below. Then we climb yet more stairs to the top of the dome into the cupola from where we can see far out across the city. The staircase leading to the top runs inside the dome itself and hugs the shape of the dome so the walls of the staircase are curved as if the whole stairwell had been twisted over. You literally have to walk up the staircase bent over to your right and lean on the curved wall to stop yourself from falling over. A very unsettling experience and definitely not recommended for claustrophobics.

Lots of ancient architecture down there and more domes than a toupee convention. Our apartment is just visible on the far right edge of the photo, about a quarter of the way up.
















We had a picnic lunch on top of the Basilica itself. There's a cafe/restaurant, a souvenir shop (run by nuns), and a toilet all perched on the wacky uneven roof of the church - you kinda feel either drunk or at sea walking around there. Behind Rachel is the electrified figure of Jesus on top of St Peters. We assume the statue is wired in order to keep pigeons at bay.



























   No trip to The Vatican City would be complete without a blessing by the bloke in charge. At noon on sunday we popped down to St Peters Square for a quick peek at the Pope.

Just a few mates joined us for the 15 minute blessing.


The penguin squad. The Sisters had heard about Rachel's nun-worrying behaviour and were out in strength this time.







Pope Benedict XIV working the crowds. You can tell it's good weather because His Holiness has the Papal Beach Towel hanging from his window.