Italy-Day 17 The Vatican

Our last day in Italy, we headed to the Vatican. We had a three hour tour, which didn't feel like three hours at all. I couldn't believe all the things that we in the Vatican, historical and contemporary. The above is a picture of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

This is one of the very first pieces I saw in my very first art history class.

The Vatican was one of my favorite things from the trip (I know, I know, I have a lot of favorites!) but one of my favorite things in the Vatican was the Map Room. The walls were all hand painted aerial maps of Europe, that were completed before the golden age of exploration. Before even hot air balloons. And they are fairly accurate.

The School of Athens painting, by Raphael.

This Sistine Chapel. We were in the Sistine Chapel for all of maybe five minutes, before the guards started clearing us out. It was packed with people. It was pretty crazy.

We finished up our tour in St. Peter's, which is huge. Totally blew my mind. We saw Michelangelo's Pieta, dead popes and a whole lot of marble. It was incredible. What else can I say?
After lunch and a quick break, we went looking for Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa, which is in one of the smaller churches in Rome. Well, after two other churches, and asking for directions several times, we were finally headed in the right direction, sprinting to the church, before it closed. Always sprinting for the Bernini's! But we made it, and it was awesome.

We spent our last night in Italy having dinner at the same restaurant behind the Pantheon and routing for Italy in the World Cup. We took a short walk after dinner to see Bernini's Four River's Fountain, before heading back to the hostel to pack and sleep, since we were heading to the airport at 6:45 the next morning.

Well, that's it! My Italian experience day by day. I hope you found these posts enjoyable. Thanks for sticking with me through these, and my more regular types of posts will resume soon.

Have a great weekend!