St Peter’s Basilica, Lego, and more art

We are having a great time in Rome. Here are some photos in a random order

Steve had a great time at the Rome Lego store, even buying about 100 black bricks for our build for the Canberra Brick Show in November (we need 5000).

We went to an AMAZING “Impressionism & Beyond” at the Archaeolgy Museum. This was one of my favourite paintings, it is by Picasso (I love it because you can see him starting to explore different planes in his painting process)

Recycling in the Vatican (we thought of Jacqui with this)

In any Australian museum this would be a centre piece of an exhibition, but this piece by Giovanni del Biondo is next to the fire extinguisher in the Pinacoteca (painted in 1391). They have so much great art in the Vatican Museums.

The sun was setting as we started our way out of the Vatican Museums. We went a second time, much later in the day so I could see the Pinacoetca, which we’d missed on our last visit due to the crush of people. This time we went in 2 hours before they were closing and it was much easier to get around the museums.  When we arrived to go through security, the staff recognised us from last week (well, they recognised Skye)

Skye has been fantastic in how she has handled being next to the wheelchair. 

Rome has these great drinking water fountains to refill your bottle (they have them in Florence too). We couldn’t pass up getting Vatican water in our bottle. 

We bought some fresh tortellini from Mercarto Trionfale and cooked it in our apartment for lunch.

Skye wanted to play with Alice’s Paddington Bear. 

The rooftops in Rome have a lot of TV antennas and satellite dishes - because the buildings are so old and build so solidly, the connection cable has to go down the outside of the building (you might need to zoom in to see them). We thought of Lachlan when we saw this. 

We had pizza from Alice Pizza, so had to send Alice a photo of Paddington eating Alice Pizza.

Yellow Car!

A typical Roman breakfast - Cappuccino & Maritozzo (slightly sweet buns filled with whipped cream)

We thought we’d get to St Peter’s Bascilica as they opened at 7 (like Steve did on Saturday), but unfortunately there was a random closure of all people going into Vatican City, so we had to wait for about an hour in the cold - weather were still glad when we got to cross the border into Vatican City though)

St Peter’s Basilica is MASSIVE. The photos just don’t show the scale of how big it is. 

I had a go at the photo Steve had taken the day before. It’s made me look at statues in a whole different way. 

Our apartment is on the 5th floor, and we have a genuine european lift - complete with doors we have to close, and the fact that it is tiny. We only just fit with Steve, Skye, myself & the wheelchair (it isn’t wide enough to sit in the wheelchair).

 

Rome Photography Tour

Today Stephen did an AMAZING one-on-one tour with Giulio D’Ercole from Rome Photo Fun Tours. Giulio is a professional photographer and Professor of Photography at the Istituto Pantheon of Technology and Design. I spent the time resting and recovering from all the fun yesterday, as well as reading and doing some painting (trying out the travel art kit I put together before we left home). 

Stephen said the tour was phenomenally good, with a great mix of photography tutoring as well as hearing the history of the sites they visited (& they visited a LOT - Stephen walked 11km on the tour). They met as the sun was rising so were able to get a lot of shots before the sites were crowded with tourists. 

Here are some of the 150 photos Stephen took. 

Piazza San Pietro

The saints line the rooftops of The Vatican

Greeting you as you enter St Peter’s Basilica

Inside St Peter’s Basilica

St Peter keeping watch over Rome whilst the sun rises

The border between Vatican City & Rome

A Mona in the wild!

The Swiss Guards

Castel Saint Angelo

The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

The Roman Forum

The Colosseum

Vatican Museums

 We had a half day at the Vatican Museums & LOVED it. We are hoping to go back for more. Here are some of our photos.

Nero’s Bathtub

The drapery and columns are painted, as is the ceiling.

The ceiling of the map room is stunning

The map room and the Sistine Chapel were our favourites (you can’t take any photos in the Sistine Chapel)

This wheelchair lift takes you onto the Sistine Chapel level, and is as dodgy as it looks (but it was worth it to get into the Sistine Chapel). The Sistine Chapel was mind blowing in it’s execution and artistic creativity. We really loved sitting in the chapel and discovering all the little details. You can’t take any photos in the chapel (or talk).

This is a moving sculpture in the Pinecone Courtyard.

 

Official photo from the Vatican Museums website. We were lucky enough to be able to sit on a bench against this screen and admire the chapel for about 20 mins. It was breathtaking.

 

We read a lot of Rick Steves guides to get information on the Vatican Museums. Unfortunately we couldn’t use his audio guide because the disabled access doesn’t go on the same route as everyone else. the disabled route goes in the opposite direction to the normal route about 50% of the time (maybe a bit more), which means you are fighting against the crowds a lot of the time, but the staff are super helpful, which makes up for it).

Vatican Museums Disabled Access Map

The official website of the Vatican Museums (there are a lot of fake websites to avoid, this is the official website) https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en.html