Vatican City

Today we left Italy and visited the smallest country in the world!!! And posted postcards there!!!
We got up reasonably early and had breakfast at the hostel. Again we had real coffee, sugary cereal and croussants out of a packet, tho chocolate filling this time. I think I could get used to Italian breakfasts!!!

We made our way to St Peters Square which is huge adn apparently ussually filled with tourists and chairs for the paupal audience. We were lucky enought to see it almost desserted so we could get a real feel for the scale of it and the amazing architecture.

As we walked up to the entrance we were offered a free tour in english so of course we jumped at the chance to get shown what we are looking at. The guide was wonderful and she told us about all of the paintings )although actually all of the pictures in St Peters that look like paintings are actually mosaics!!) and told us about how huge it is and a bit abou the history. We were also very lucky that as they were doing some restoration on the usual entrance we got to enter throught the main front doors where the pope usually holds his mass on wednesdays!!

St Peters it totally GIANT!!! The inside is longer than one and a half football fields and the letters around the top of the dome are 12 feet tall!!! In all a very awe inspiring place.

After leaving there the tour continued into the Vatican Museums (tho we did have to pay this time, but worth it) I'm so glad we stayed with the tour as she told us that there are 14 km of corridoors in the museum and if you looked at each item for one minute it would take 12 years to see everything!!!! so good thing we didnt give ourselves the oppurtunity to get lost!!! we looked at some of the most important sculptures by famous artists and of course the Rapheal rooms that were painted By rapheal ( obviously) which were beautiful, paintings all over the entire walls and ceilings!!!

...and the on to the Sistine Chapel. I dont know what to say about that really, its not possible to describe in words. It was simply beautiful, an amazing piece of art that really took my breath away and nothing like what I expected it to be. If you've seen it you will know what i mean and if you havent, go see it!!! And especially wonderful to have had it all explained to us before we went in so we knew what to look for and where to stand to see it at it's best. Unfortunatly no photos allowed tho.

After lunch at a local pizzeria reccomended by our guide (very yummy, tho the danger of not being able to understand the menu meant I had an Anchovie pizza, tasty but not my first choice!!) we braved some more stairs and climbed to the top of the cupola, the little round bit at the top of the dome of St Peters. the views down into the nave from the dome really put the whole basicilica into perspective and it was possible to get an idea of how massive it really is. The people looked tiny down there!!! And then some beautiful views of Rome, we have been really lucky with the weather so far and it was a clear blue day!!! phew are we over staris by now tho and its only the thrid day, dont worry tho we will still not be able to resist climbing up anything else that presents its self tomorrow.

o and we had our first roman Gelati this afternoon as we walked home. i have blueberry and pistacio and jeremy had chocolate (of course) which was soo yummy!!! Bring on more tomorrow
Love us.