The smallest country in the world with less than a thousand
permanent residents, there are still plenty of reasons to visit the Vatican City. It is the home
of the Pope (the head of state) and is the centre of the Catholic world, completely surrounded by the city of Rome.
Interestingly, due to the small number of residents and huge numbers of visiting tourists the Vatican
City has the highest crime rate per capita of any country in the world. But don't worry - you'll feel
perfectly safe!
We went to the Vatican city during our trip to Rome in Jan 2005, when the queues were somewhat
reduced and there wasn't the risk of collapsing with heat exhaustion whilst waiting at the
metal detectors. Most disappointingly however, I didn't get my passport stamped.
We visited the Vatican twice (once on Wednesday, once on Friday), and saw St Peter's Basilica inside
and out, the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, but the undoubted highlight, hands down, was
seeing the Pope!
The view from the top of St Peter's Basilica over the square
and collonade at the front. In the middle of the piazza there is still a nativity scene in place.
Looking back along the road from the Tiber river to St Peter's
Square, the previous photo was taken from the small collonade at the very top of Michaelangelo's dome.
The spire on top of the dome reaches nearly 138 metres, and it is a double walled structure which makes
for some interesting clambering up inside between the dome walls.
Looking towards the bronze baldachinno and the altar inside
the Basilica. It should be noted that St Peter's is not the largest cathedral in the world, as it
is not in fact a cathedral - it is a basilica. The whole place is so ostentatiously decorated.
A view down inside the basilica from the inner rim of the dome,
high above the ant-like people below. I got a much better idea of the scale of the place standing up
here, it is one of very few buildings I have been to of truly "Star Wars" proportions. This is looking
into one of the transepts.
These are two of the Swiss guards who you'll spot wandering
the Vatican in their somewhat jester-ified outfits and sporting pikes. They are the Pope's personal
army, and comprise a large proportion of the Vatican's permanent residents. Each guard is well
trained in use of the pike, and if you want to join you had better be from Switzerland.
A shot of the collonade on St Peter's Square with Michaelangelo's
dome in the background. He also built the collonade, with stone pinched from the seating of the colosseum
(which nobody was interested in preserving 500 years ago as it is a pagan building). There is a point
in the square where you can stand so that you see the illusion of only one row of columns, not four.
Michaelangelo's "Pieta", sculpture of Mary and the body of Jesus
after being taken down from the cross. It is behind bullet proof glass now after being attacked by
a maniac some years ago. Michaelangelo signed his name on Mary's sash after being offended by somebody
who didn't know who had created the sculpture.
One of the ornately decorated ceilings in the many miles of
Vatican museum corridor.
On first seeing this sculpture in one of the gardens of the
Vatican museum I thought that it was the damaged sculpture which used to sit at the base of the
World Trade Center in New York, but on closer observation found that this was not so. It is a collision
of a small ball into a larger one. I tried to make it look like it had slipped down from the alcove
in the building behind.
One of the display corridors of the Vatican museum, this one
was particularly tranquil.
These stairs feature heavily in postcards of the Vatican,
they are the exit stairs of the museum. I would probably have put a picture of the roof of the
Sistine Chapel here, but they don't allow you to take photos of it and I respect that. If you want
to see it, go yourself!
Here he is! Pope John Paul II, in what was probably one of his
last public audiences in late January 2005. It was free to attend, provided you got there early enough
to get tickets. There was great excitement before he came on, and the event lasted about an hour
during which time he addressed the audience in six languages, welcoming individually each registered
visiting group.
