Rome Day 3, The Final Installment

We decided early in our trip that our last day in Rome, a Wednesday, would be spent at the Vatican. The main reason being that every Wednesday morning the Pope gives his weekly address and blesses the crowd. While I'm not Catholic, Phillip is, and I've been with him to church numerous times, so I felt that I could actually appreciate the service. It really was a very neat experience!


The Pope in his Pope Mobile!! I LOVE IT!!! I couldn't believe how close we got to him!




The Pope reading his address. He read the same address in about 7 different languages. I definitely at least recognized Latin, Italian, English, Spanish, French, and German. The entire address lasted an hour and a half and he ended it by singing the Lord's Prayer in Latin and blessing the crowd.


We then decided to go have some lunch and let the crowds clear before we tackled the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. I have many pictures from the Vatican Museums, but since I've already posted a lot of pictures on this post, you can see them on facebook. Unfortunately they did not allow any pictures of the Sistine Chapel. The Museums were very nice, but very overwhelming! There was just so much to see! The Sistine Chapel was beautiful, but not quite what I expected. It is very small. There were also about 200 people crammed into the room, with ushers constantly shushing people, so it was hard just to stand there and appreciate it. I really wanted to just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling, but you were lucky to find a comfortable place to stand. The frescoes were incredible though!!! I actually appreciated Michelangelo's Last Judgement fresco the most, which covers the entire front wall of the chapel. The ceiling is beautiful too, which is where his most famous Creation fresco lies. The Sistine Chapel was very overwhelming too because every single inch of the walls and ceilings are painted, and I mean every inch!!

After finishing with the Vatican Museums (we only saw about 2 out of the 4 museums, and we were running out of time), we headed over to St. Peter's Basilica. It was incredible! So huge, and just breathtaking.


The Chapel is built upon the original burial place of St. Peter the apostle, considered the First Pope of the Catholic church.


St. Peter's Tomb down below.


Michelangelo's La Pieta. Beautiful!


And thus this ends our trip to Rome!!! That evening we took the train back to Pisa and flew back to Germany the next day. Pisa's airport was cheaper than Rome's, so that's why we went back. We had a fantastic time on our trip! We were really only there for about 4 days, but we saw so much! And of course, we had plenty of gelato!