The Vatican...riches beyond your wildest dreams

A day in the Vatican City will leave you wanting more. You may not be converted; indeed, you may well end up questioning how a church that preaches generosity of thought and deed ended up so wealthy, but it will be evident what the backing of the papacy did for art and architecture.

What had the biggest impact on me?

Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta’, just inside the entrance of St. Peter’s Basilica and to the right, is a stunning and moving depiction of a mother mourning her son.

The claustrophobic final few metres of the ascent to the cupola of St. Peter’s: anticipation, graffiti, other people’s backsides too close for comfort, and just a little too much ‘hot body smells’.

Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ in the Sistine Chapel. Promising artist this one -- watch out for him!

Quick Tips:

Avoid the temptation to eat in one of the restaurants near the entrance to the Vatican museum. The waiting staff is incredibly persuasive, but this is not the way to enjoy dining on holiday. The food is pretty average (and I’m being generous) and you don’t get time to linger.

Don’t arrive too late at the Vatican museums – last entry is 3.45pm in the summer and a couple of hours earlier in the winter. The highlights of the Sistine Chapel and Raphael Stanze are deep within the museum – don’t leave them too late in your visit.

At risk of sounding like your mother, don’t forget to dress properly when going to see the Pope’s place. They’re quite hot on it too; shoulders and knees just aren’t the done thing.

Best Way To Get Around:

The accepted mode of transport is bus #64, which stops fairly close to Piazza San Pietro, having made its way from the Stazione Termini, down Via Nazionale, through the Centro Storico, and across the Tiber. Take the visual cue from your fellow bus users; if people in habits and cassocks get off, you’re probably there. We ended up at the backwater Stazione San Pietro some half a hot mile away. The Blonde has nearly forgiven me some three months later.

The nearest metro station to the Vatican is Ottaviano, about 10 minutes walk away. Rome’s metro isn’t particularly useful for tourists as it’s devised for commuters and there’s quite a bit of stuff that might get damaged in the centre!

Of course, those with stamina may well want to take a walk – rather you than me, although a stroll across the Pont Sant Angelo would be interesting.

How often have you read a guidebook’s handy tips for travellers after you’ve done something unpleasant? The line we missed on this occasion? It read: "Unless you want to be desperately disappointed, under no circumstance should you eat in restaurants near the Vatican museum. They are, without exception, awful and will leave you with a feeling of self-loathing and bitterness." Or something like that.

In our defence, it was a moment of weakness coupled with the persuasive and surprisingly muscular powers of tiny waitresses who virtually manhandle you into the restaurant. When walking from St. Peter’s square to the entrance of the Vatican museum you must never appear to slow your pace and don’t glance right, whatever you do. Before we knew it we found ourselves sat under a bright yellow awning virtually on top of another couple with a laminated menu in our hands.

Our appetites started to ebb away long before the food arrived. We only stayed for the same reason that people don’t walk out of bad films. You have to know how this will end. The Blonde received her chicken fillets wrapped in prosciutto with good grace (she was brought up very well) while I could barely hide the look of abject disappointment when presented with my risotto Milanese. Any Milanese worth his salt would have been so affronted by this insult to their city that the only recourse would be to burn down the restaurant. It was a pile of yellow rice.

After the Blonde had revealed the burnt corners of her incinerated chicken from under the cunningly placed lettuce, we decided that the only thing we could do was giggle like school children throughout the rest of the meal. So we did, much to the consternation of the English family behind us.

Be strong, don’t weaken. The waitresses look so pleading as they drag you in, as if to say "The owner will beat us if we don’t fill the tables . . . please come, pleeeaasse". Harden yourself or rescue them from their plight. Just don’t eat the food.

We approached Piazza San Pietro on foot from the south having seriously miscalculated how long to stay on famous bus #64 (some guidebooks say it’s the sensible, nay only, way to cross the Tiber from central Rome, others suggest it is a pickpocket-infested crime bus). This meant that we snuck into the square through the forest of pillars that make up the colonnade rather than the grand approach from the east. Whichever route in you take, you are still immediately struck by the enormity of the space – a place you have seen in a thousand photographs and news reports and yet remain ill-prepared for. The obelisk in the centre, brought to the square nearly 500 years ago, provides a single, solemn focus to the vast empty space. Apart from all the chairs. And the pilgrims, of course.

The two arms of the colonnade reach out towards Rome from the Basilica, opening the arms of the Catholic Church towards the city and beyond but is it welcoming or perhaps a little daunting? It certainly attracts the faithful; large groups from across the world make colourful crocodiles cutting across the open space and threading their way between the thousands of chairs that face the Basilica in anticipation of the pontiff’s next show. We spotted Mexicans in distinctive neckerchiefs, overheard Spanish and Portuguese of various flavours and mingled with priests of all ages. All were gravitating towards the grand edifice at the western end of the piazza and we joined them (insert ‘when in Rome’ gag here).

We joined the queue that patiently shuffled toward the grand façade of the Basilica itself. Today’s church is relatively young – built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to replace a crumbling church that had stood since the Rome of Constantine ‘went Christian’. The hand of pretty much all of Italy’s great and good architects and artists of the day had a hand in its construction. It is huge – the church was making a statement about its importance here – and clearly no expense was spared, not only in terms of scale but also in the richness of its décor and treasures. If you look up you will be lucky to see the dome of course, the main landmark from any other vantage point in the city. What you will see is Christ and his apostles staring back down at you from their vantage point along the roof’s edge.

The Basilica is one of the few tourist spots left where a dress code still matters – no shorts or inappropriate bare shoulders will find their way in. I was hoping that the ostentatiously dressed Swiss Guards would be doing the inspecting but, alas, no. I really hope that those guys are pretty tough – I would love to see them ‘turn nasty’ – it would be a hilarious sight.

The outside of the Basilica and its setting leave you dumbstruck, but that’s nothing compared to what’s in store inside.

The wait to get inside St. Peter’s is not too long – you have plenty to stare at while you wait. So many visitors from all over the world make ‘people watching’ a close rival to ‘building gazing’ – interesting behaviour abounds. You get a sense of the distinct motivational contrast of the visitors; the awe-struck gazing at the Michelangelo’s astonishing pieta imprisoned behind glass and the excited disorderly queue taking it in turns to rub St. Peter’s bronze foot off.

Four huge pillars support the 44 metre diameter dome, each containing one of the major relics and decorated accordingly. I can’t help but be fascinated by the mysterious medieval world of relics; the stories, the gory obsession with skulls, blood and other sacred bodily appendages, the unwavering faith in their providence. St. Peter is supposedly tucked under the floor somewhere; a piece of the Holy Cross is here too, as are the spear of St. Longinus and a handkerchief.

Tour this grand space at your leisure, there is so much to take in. The papal tombs compete with one another for your attention and with other sculptures, many by Bernini. When you have absorbed all you can I would recommend the ascent of the dome. This was the largest queue we encountered - €5 to go part way in the lift, €4 if you take the gentle sloping steps instead. The interior of the lower stairwells are reminiscent of a gent’s lavatory – serving as something of a deterrent to the erstwhile Italian graffiti artists. The walkways are cramped, particularly up inside the dome where you clamber between its outer and inner layers. During this time you may well become a little too knowledgeable about your fellow climber’s hygiene if you get my drift. For a short while you make your way around the inside of the dome itself and have a particularly alarming view back down to the floor of the Basilica and the ant people scurrying around. You are perfectly safe though, honest.

A little more management of the crowds is in order – it would make the ascent much more pleasant. It is also difficult to enjoy the views from the top with so many others jostling for the perfect photo down to the piazza. The Blonde and I didn’t tarry long at the cupola although the final narrow staircase makes you yearn for a one-way system.

St. Peter’s is difficult to get to grips with in one visit. There are so many features of interest that individually would draw huge crowds and yet they’re all here…and then there’s the Vatican museum and its treasures around the corner. Catholic or not, St. Peter’s, the papacy and Rome have had such an impact on so many aspects of western life that it is impossible to ignore the significance of this place. It left me in awe.

As we made our way from Piazza San Pietro to the entrance of the Vatican museums a few things dawned on us: i) this is a very popular route ii) we really should’ve eaten earlier iii) this is quite a long way considering the two buildings are joined iv) this is quite a short distance considering we’ve just walked across an independent state in about 15 minutes, v) don’t ever eat in the Risorgimento (see separate entry)

The Vatican museums hold the largest treasure trove in Italy and are a testament to the wealth and, politely put, acquisitive nature of the Papacy. There are Etruscan and Egyptian exhibits, Renaissance art and statuary as far as you can see. And that’s before you even look at the building itself – most of the great Renaissance artists were in the pay of the Pope at one time or another and turned their hand to a little painting and decorating for their patron.

Take note: the museum complex stops letting people in fairly early in the afternoon. No quick tour at the end of the afternoon is possible here. Accept before you start – you will not see everything. We were intent on seeing only the essentials; the Blonde was showing symptoms of culture fatigue (and who can blame her after being dragged round Florence, Siena and Rome?) and I only had enough interest left for ‘champagne art’ – none of your promising unknowns for me.

We took the Rough Guide’s advice – the only essentials being the Raphael Stanze and the Sistine Chapel. Of course, these are buried deep in the museum and so you are forced to enjoy the galleries of candelabra, tapestries and maps en route. I’d like to say that we didn’t rush past through these wonderful collections of 16th century treasures but we were rapidly descending into a ‘teenager on a school trip’ state of mind…"another really old painting . . . like . . . wow".

And then we walked into the collection of rooms decorated by Raphael and his pupils for Pope Julius II and Pope Leo X. A feast for the eyes. A violent assault of colour and imagery . . . you pick the superlatives. These were the offices and apartments of the Pope – how could he have ‘worked’? (unless your work involves impressing minions with your wealth and taste I suppose..). Reading about the works beforehand certainly helped my appreciation. My favourite fresco is in the Stanza della Segnatura; the School of Athens with many of Raphael’s contemporaries fulfilling roles as Greek academics and philosophers.

The only other temptations in this vast museum were the Sistine Chapel (separate entry) and the Borgia apartments – the stories and rumours about Pope Alexander VI and his family are incredibly compelling – but you have to know when enough is enough. Our thoughts had turned to relaxation in the form of Sorrento and its beaches. Time to leave all this history behind. Except for Pompeii, of course.

Can anyone be truly prepared for the Sistine Chapel? Before you enter for the first time you will almost certainly have seen many fragments in many different contexts from art books to adverts, biscuit tin labels to calendars. The body of work in this room is, according to many, the greatest masterpiece in the world – and after you’ve seen it…well you can judge for yourself.

You enter the chapel through an unassuming narrow doorway and are greeted with a barn-sized feast of colour. Recently restored, the frescoes on the walls and, of course, the ceiling are vibrant and arresting. This feast of colour is added to by the mass of people craning their necks to study the ceiling . . . and ignoring the frequent ‘shushes’ that the attendants hiss in a vain attempt to establish a little dignified hush.

The celebrated works of Michelangelo on the ceiling and his Last Judgement on the wall behind the altar are what bring the crowds – the work of Botticelli and other reknowned artists can be found on the other walls but are largely ignored. The Old Testament provides the theme for the series of panels across the ceiling – all powerful in their own right with personal favourites including the Creation of Adam with the fingers touching across the heavens and the Temptation of Eve with its particularly devious looking snake.

And then when you’re done with that and your neck needs a rest give The Last Judgement a look. Tackled some 20 years after the ceiling, Michelangelo took some six years to produce this immense piece. Considering he was reluctant to do it he created an enormous fresco that feels very ‘together’. Michelangelo clearly enjoyed painting a fine physique – the damned look pretty good considering – and wasn’t above putting the odd enemy in their place with uncomfortable depictions. In the lower centre of the picture check out the angelic auditors – the book of the damned is worrying large compared to the saved.

I could have stayed for hours, despite the crowds and the jostling. Find yourself a rare section of bench space and take it all in. The stories behind the paintings are fascinating; Michelangelo fitted the stereotype as a moody, temperamental artist-type while the Popes who commissioned the works come across as demanding and distinctly ungodly at times. Stories of fights and tantrums, locked doors and demands with a little bit of politics thrown in for good measure. Come to think of it, sounds like an average day at work.

Get here early . . . stay awhile. This is one of the most visited pieces of art in the world for a very good reason and, like so many things in Rome, once just won’t be enough.