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