My Cuppa Irish Tea: Rome - Vatican Museums and St. Peter's

April 19, 2014

Holy Saturday

Today we started off at the Vatican Museum. I wanted to do the museum today since it was supposed to rain most of the day. We ended up paying again to do a tour and skip the crazy LONG line to the museum. But once we got inside we ditched the tour guide and did our own thing. So yes we honestly just paid extra to skip the line. I had tried to buy tickets online before we left for Italy but everything was already sold out. I know...we are crazy!

This used to be the entrance to the museum but now you go through the side
where your bags and yourself have to go through security.

The Vatican Museums are located in the Vatican City. The are an incredible collection built up by the Catholic Church throughout the centuries. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. Today over 5 million people visit the museum each year. There are 54 galleries in the museum totaling 4 miles long. Its really hard to capture in photographs this museum. There are just so so many amazing things to look at.

Courtyard at the Museum

L and T with Caesar Augustus

Ceiling in one of the Greek Rooms

This is the tomb that contains St. Helena and her daughter Constantina -
The Room of the Greek Cross

Emperor Nero's bathtub

The mosaic floor in the Room at the Greek Cross

Gallery of Tapestries

The Resurrection tapestry

Gallery of Maps - I have always loved the fresco covered ceiling in this room.

This is one of the largest collections of maps in the world

Fresco of Pius IX Declaring Dogma of the Immaculate Conception

more Charlemagne frescos in the Papal apartments

The ceiling in the apartment rooms

These pictures are from the Raphiel Rooms. They are frescos by Raphael but he died before they were finished and his followers completed them 4 years later.

part of the ceiling from the Raphael room

This is Raphael's School of Athens - which gives us a sneak preview
of the unfinished church (St. Peter's).

I think the children all enjoyed the museum. K just wanted to race through it all when we told her that the Sistine Chapel was at the end. T could probably have stayed in the museum all day looking at art. L just asked for food every 30 minutes...probably because she was a tad bit bored.

We finally got to the Sistine Chapel. This is the Pope's personal chapel and the place where, upon the death of the ruling Pope, a new Pope is elected. We all know this just happened in March 2013 when Pope Benedict XVI retired. My children were all excited to see the chapel because they had heard so much about it and they learned about it at school. They even watched it on TV at home and school when we were waiting for the "white" or "black"smoke to come from the Sistine Chapel announcing that a new Pope had been chosen. The Chapel is most famous for Michelangelo's artwork showing the story of creation. He spent 4 years on this project. Many art scholars say that the ceiling is the single greatest work of art by any one human being.

K and T's first reaction was that the room was small. Ha! I guess maybe I thought that too when I first saw the Sistine Chapel in 1995. But if you really look at the detail of the artwork you realize it was a HUGE project. WOW!

Here is my illegal picture of the Sistine Chapel!

We took the shortcut from the Vatican Museum into St. Peter's. We just had to go back inside again.

This is in front of a side altar where many pilgrims go to pray...but it was closed.
We did though have time today to all sit and pray in front of St. John Paul II's
tomb 7 days before his Canonization.