Flaming hot days in Rome

These past two days have been so fun getting to see Rome and all it has to offer. It has also been very hot! not humid just straight up hot, so we have been sweating a lot. Yesterday we took a tour of the Vatican City.  The Vatican is actually its own country, separate from Italy, and the smallest country in the world. They have their own money, police, fire department, etc and the pope is the ruler - so he can do whatever he wants. Most of the Vatican is actually park area, the other parts are housing, the Vatican Museums, and Saint Peter's Basilica. There is a HUGE waiting line to get into the Vatican, luckily our tour guide is allowed to skip the line!

The Vatican Museums holds many sculptures and wall paintings from famous artists like Michelangelo and Raphael. Our tour guide, Andrea, did an awesome job explaining the different pieces to us and giving us some insider information. For example, in one of Raphael's famous paintings, he painted all the famous philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, but rather than draw their faces, he painted other peoples faces like Leonard Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and his own face is hidden in the painting!

Click on to see larger view

Bronze sculpture of Hercules

Another fun fact, you probably have seen/heard that a lot of the sculpture's genitals are broken off. They were obviously originally on there, but at some point on of the Popes decided to cover up all the sculpture's genitals with fig leaves because they were considered inappropriate. Years later another Pope deemed this a mistake and attempted to remove the fig leaves. Of course, when they tried to remove the fig leaves, the genitals were also removed. They finally decided to not finish removing all the statues and that it was better to leave the fig leaves than remove everything.


Then we got to see the Sistine Chapel. This is where the papal conclave takes place - the election of popes. The Cardinals vote by writing on pieces of paper - the paper is then burnt in a stove and the smoke can be seen outside. Thousands of people wait in Saint Basilica's Square to look for the smoke - black means a pope has NOT been elected yet and voting will continue and white means a new pope was elected. Michelangelo was asked by a pope to create a painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel because he thought it was boring (previously just blue with yellow stars). Michelangelo was not happy about this because he was a sculptor and did not want to do paintings. It took him 40 years to complete the painting and he made it look like it is 3D or actually sculptures - this is why the people are painted as very muscular, to give a sculpture/3D look. He had to paint on wet cement so that the paint was absorbed into the ceiling - a painting technique called fresco. The image consists of multiple stories from the bible. It was amazing to actually see this masterpiece. We weren't allowed to take images, they are very strict and walk around monitoring everyone. The room was jam packed with everyone cranking their heads towards the ceiling.

After the museums and the Sistine Chapel, we were suppose to go to the catacomb tombs and Saint Basilica church but they closed everything down early because there was going to be a special program going on the in square. Our guide was a little upset because they closed everything earlier than they had previously mentioned. Luckily he offered to meet up with us the following day to finish the tour.

Saint Basilica is the longest church in the world! and extremely gorgeous. Just walking into the massive church, our jaws dropped. It is amazing to see the light coming through the windows, especially the dome window, and light up everything inside.









The church is filled with statues, a couple mummified popes (only ones that were deemed saints because they performed miracles) and every picture in the church is a mosaic.

The Vatican was truly amazing to see and now we are able to say we have been there! The city is full of interesting history, beautiful art, and hidden secrets...