While we were in Rome we made a last minute decision to take a guided tour into the Vatican, a decision I’m very glad we made. On our final morning we rose early and caught the metro over to Vatican City to join our tour, which was to begin at 8am. On arrival, we were told that we were upgraded into a better tour (simply because no one else had booked for our original tour). They told us to keep the price we paid on the down-low, because the other tourists had paid a lot more for this tour. The group was made up of only 6 people, we had a great guide and a longer, more in depth tour.
We waltzed into the Vatican at about 8:20 in the morning and since we were in a tour group we did not have to wait in any lines. This alone I would fork out money for because I hate waiting for hours on end in lines. Our tour guide bolted through the first few galleries with minimal stopping. We were briskly marched through these galleries trying desperately to take in everything before our eyes: some galleries with painted ceilings that had the optical illusion of looking 3D, some with actual sculpted ceilings, many statues and tapestries, the Gallery of Maps which showed huge painted maps on either side so it felt as though you were walking along the ridge of mountains from north to south of Italy looking over east and west. We were able to take photos pretty much everywhere (except the Sistine Chapel) as long as we did not use flash so that the light from constant camera flashes would not fade the paintings.
As we left these galleries and were rushed down the stairs towards the Sistine Chapel I remarked to Isaac, “If my Dad was in this tour, I’m pretty sure he would disobey the tour guide and simply stop in order to take in some of this stuff. Why is our guide rushing us through?? This is an outrage!” (all in good humor though, we weren’t really that pissed off – we figured there would be a reason for this rush). And there was. We arrived into the Sistine Chapel before 9am, which is when it opens to the public; it was nearly empty and we were able to sit down and take in everything around us. The tour guide was very knowledgeable; it was like being in an incredibly interesting art and religion history lecture, only instead of looking at pictures on an overhead projector we were looking at the real thing inside the Sistine Chapel. So let me correct myself: it was obviously much, much better than a university lecture!
While we were there and the tour guide was talking away with all us kids listening in awed silence, suddenly the spot lights on either side of the chapel turned on, lighting up the whole place brilliantly. The tour guide stopped dead and looked around and said, “Wow… In all my years… Wow… We are VERY lucky today… In all my years doing these tours every single day, not once have the lights been turned on. We are very, very lucky”. We all had big smiles on our gobs and looked around us, with our tongues practically hanging out. We then saw that there was a professional film crew and realised that this must have been the reason for the lights. Normally the only lighting is through diffused spot lights that shine through the Chapel windows, which looks a bit like twilight in a dark-ish room. The spot lights that turned on were very bright indeed and we were able to see much more clearly the frescoes on the walls and ceiling. So the guide continued and we learned a great deal about Michelangelo, the Medici family and Pope Julius II.
After a while the guide looked at his watch and said that we had to hurry on because we had an appointment to see a special place that is not open to all tourists. We had no idea about this and wondered what we were going to see. We went back upstairs, through some more galleries until we reached a guarded door. The guide spoke to the guards and they opened the door and we passed into an apartment that was completely empty save for us and a few guards. This, we learned, was the private apartments of Pope Nicholas V and the Niccoline Chapel. Only ten tourists (via official tours) are admitted per fortnight for a period of 10 minutes into this section of the Vatican, so this is yet another reason we were very, very lucky.
We proceeded through more galleries, Raphael’s rooms, the Immaculate Conception and Sobieski rooms, and lastly taken through a “secret” passage (not open to public outside tour groups) through to St Peter’s Basilica, again no lines to wait in, which was nice.
St Peter’s Basilica was huge, to say the least. Very awe-inspiring and again we had our tongues hanging out as we gaped and gawped at the enormity of all the detail around us. Every single detail was huge. And because of that we did not realise just how big they were unless a person went up and stood next to it. The angelic cherubs (see photo), for example, were about 2m tall, but they didn’t look it unless a person stood near them. The Chancel stands 9 stories high. The whole Basilica, from floor to the dome is 20 stories. Yes, very big indeed.
We were so glad we did the guided tour. Had we walked through on our own I know we would not have enjoyed it as much. It’s best to know what you are looking at and we learned a great deal from our guide!
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