Aug 2010 Rome - day 2

Day two in Rome.

So there's a chance of some rain later today. A good day to see the Sistine Chapel perhaps? After two hours in the hot sun (sensibly with umbrella, hat and large cold water) we finally came to the head of the queue to enter the Musei Vaticani.

Above: the main courtyard (well, that is accessible to tourists).
Below: one of a gadzillion fine sculptures and other priceless antiquities stuffed inside this Museum.

RIght: Here's our star - the Emperor Hadrian (on the right)!
It seems an awful lot of stuff had made its way into the possession of the Vatican, including loads of stuff once housed in Hadrian's Villa. Such as this statue of Antinous (Hadrian's favourite) as egyptian Osiris. This is how roman sculptors "did" egyptian!

Above: Tourists in the Vatican, largely ignorant of the ancient Roman mosaic (approx 2nd Century) they're shuffling across.

Below: On the way to the Sistine Chapel, there was this gorgeous view over Rome...

Of all things, they have the remains of a Roman chariot here! Here are a few more interesting Roman things, some footwear, the inside of a shield (bronze covered, wood inside), and wrap-around greaves.

So, we're still on the way to the Sistine Chapel. To get there, everyone goes along these incredible Renaissance hallways. I think we have another contender for most incredible giftshop! (above) Many metres of these walls are covered in fresco Renaissance maps of the world - incredible! Still on the way, and we come across yet another fantastic Roman floor mosaic that no-one was looking at while they walked across it...

 Because of course they're all looking at the walls and ceiling (pictured above). There are endless rooms we tourists all shuffle through, all richly decorated!
Below: this is one of numerous lovely rondels on the ceiling in another room...

And so, finally we passed through the contemporary galleries and into the Sistine Chapel. Photography is not permitted here, and we made sure to get seats to soak in Michaelangelo's famous ceiling. The chapel was significantly larger than either of us was expecting, and the ceiling certainly was quite high up! It took the better part of 10 minutes to clear the head enough to begin to truly take it in, no thanks to the previous rooms were were saturated with.
After admiring the ceiling for a goodly 20 minutes-ish, we made our way out, to discover many more richly decorated hallways on the way back to the main courtyard. Although our feet were weary, we still paused to look at the various artifacts in cabinets on the walls.

Here's an interesting thing (left and above)... we're sure we've seen bits of this thing in books, but here it is in the flesh! Its a metal, medieval map of the world. We managed to read on it: Asia Major, Minor asia, Egit (egypt?), Europa, Affrica and Reganglia (King of the Angles, England). Cool!
And on this close-up you can see an elephant and wagons.

After a late lunch, we headed over to St Peter's Square and Basilica. We looked at the queue and considered our tired feet and decided not to go in. But these photos give an idea of the scale of the place...

 

So off to home (the hotel) we hauled ourselves. After some rest and quick showers, we walked to the Piazza Navona, with its three fountains, the central one being the most dynamic! It is the Fountain of the Four Rivers, representing four rivers from four continents.

 

We enjoyed a leisurely dinner at the Navona restaurant, stopped in at the gelateria, and headed back to the hotel.