Day 26 - Vatican City

With my cool new American mates Joy and Melissa, we headed out to the Vatican museum for an early start. One of my tricks, being in a city where it hardly snows, if I'm there, it will snow (has now happened in Vancouver, Nice and Rome). While waiting in line we saw some gypsy pick pockets but some police came along and magically they got out of line.

In we go and first up is the Lacoon - pretty amazing, but smaller than I thought. I think the cast at art school must be an enlargement. Otherwise we ventured into the 'high achievers' room where no one else was checking out stuff. Lots of wandering and found a piece that inspired Michangelo (now his style makes so much more sense).

Eventually came to the Raphael Rooms and the 'School of Athens' was pretty funky to be standing in front of. Next up was Michangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling - standing room only and pretty impressive. I was more interested in the Last Judgment on the wall as it seemed very different from what I remember from reproductions that I saw. The colours in general are fairly vibarent (under went a cleaning some years back and there was some objections by academics - basically disproving their theories on Michangelos' colour palette).

Overall, amazing as always. Downside is that a majority of people just go for the Sistine Chapel but it is at the end of the trek (2.5 hours) so you have crowded rooms of people who don't want to be there. Just open the door for them to get them out of the other galleries for people who want to appreciate stuff. Unfortunately this would mean tourists wouldn't go past the souviner shops every 2nd room. It would be like going to the Louvre but having to go through the whole museum to see the Mona Lisa.