SATURDAY, April 6, 2024

A once in a lifetime Vatican experience

I was happy to see that we’d be able to get that iconic Vatican shot of the spiral staircase! It starts at a gift shop at the top and winds down to an exit.

We made our way (past a pretty outside early morning view of the St. Peter’s Basilica dome) to the office of the official key masters and joined key master Alessio Censoni, who we’d be following around, and his ridiculously big ring of keys. They have almost 3,000 keys for ~300 rooms (!!) though we’d obviously only being seeing some of those haha.

The tour started with

The statue Laocoön and His Sons, the courtyard’s highlight, is one of those that I had vividly remembered spending a lot of time on in art history class but admittedly only vaguely remembered any of the details other than it being Important. But I re-looked it up and am glad I did because it really is a wild ride:

1, the statue depicts vocal Trojan Horse skeptic Laocoön the priest being attacked by sea serpents who were supposedly sent by the gods to quiet his dissent (even though he was of course right about the spies). The deliberate representation of shouting the truth and being strangled into silence by the gods hits pretty hard right now.

2, the statue itself is legend in the art history world. It was sculpted in ancient Greece (experts don’t know exactly when, but ballpark the hundred years before or after 0 CE), but future people only knew about it because the ancient Greek writer Pliny the Elder had written about it, calling it the greatest work of art ever made. But no one had ever seen it. Then in the early 1500s a farmer in Rome dug it up. And a team was called in, including Michelangelo, to verify that yes, it was indeed that long lost sculpture. A huge moment in art history, and it became the prize of the Vatican collection.

and 3, when it was found, the right arm was missing up to the shoulder stump, which created a big debate about what the arm would have been doing. Michelangelo insisted that it would have been bent back in strain, and others thought it would be extended out heroically. In 1532, the sculptor Montorsoli created and added an ‘official’ outstretched arm, totally the opposite of what Michelangelo insisted. And then of course almost 400 years later, the original bent arm fragment was found and fit perfectly, proving Michelangelo had been right all along. Which, I’m sorry 🤓, is such an amazing metaphor for Laocoön also being shut up after insisting on the truth.

Anyway, it’s a cool and important sculpture, and clearly not bad to look at, which is why it was extra special that we were able to walk a full 360° around it on this tour, something that’s normally roped off for museum visitors.

We then headed upstairs to the upper floor of the museum to open up a series of iconic corridors, starting with the Gallery of the Candelabra.

We wandered through this pretty spectacular hall as Blanche pointed out various fun facts, like the translucency of this ancient Roman marble that she’s shining a light through.

The next hall on the path was the Tapestry Room.

Towards the end of the tour, it was time to visit the highlight of the Vatican Museums: the Sistine Chapel.

Now on my own, I walked backed into the museum for a little while to take my time wandering and give some of those galleries a closer look. I didn’t really have a map or a plan, and found myself revisiting the Raphael rooms and of course the Sistine Chapel, but also a whole contemporary art wing that I didn’t expect to exist. Who knew the Vatican had a whole Matisse collection?

Finally, I spent a little bit of time in the various gift shops. This was easily the most elaborately decorated gift shop I’ve ever seen haha. What a ceiling!

While the tour was fantastic and then some, what it didn’t include was a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica itself, so that was next on my list. There is a back way in through the Sistine Chapel, but only with a tour group and our guide Blanche has told us clearly that we weren’t that and would need to go in the main way. It’s free to tour the church but there’s a long security line.

So I headed out the way we had come in in the morning (it was much more crowded now at 10am to say the least), and followed the literal big wall around the outside of Vatican City to make my way to St. Peter’s Square.

Also impressive and grand was the security line.

Eventually, I made it up to the front of the line and went through the very efficient security screening with multiple lines to walk through the metal detectors and have your bag checked...

Walking in was yet another absolute wow moment of the day – the scale of this place just really takes your breath away! I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every detail was so ornate, from the intricate tiles in the ceiling to the marble sculptures around every corner to the beautiful stained glass domes and windows.

After admiring the building itself for a few minutes, I had to make a stop to see one of the most iconic sculptures in all of art history: Michelangelo’s incredible Pieta. Showing Mary with the body of Jesus, it’s known for its….

With that major cultural bucket list item accomplished, I continued to walk around the space, just admiring the breadth of art and history that was surrounding me.

I was wandering around a little bit aimlessly, just taking it in, and found myself at the top of a spiral staircase heading down into the Vatican Grottoes where a good number of Popes and Cardinals are buried, some in very elaborate tombs.

After wandering around for a little while, I headed back outside for a last look around the piazza before heading on my way. The wall to the left here is the Sistine Chapel – which felt so far away at this point, I didn’t realize until after the fact that I was right there where I had been earlier on the tour.

Leaving the basilica, I was ready for some lunch. I had planned to go to a well-reviewed sit-down restaurant, but decided to just grab a quick bite instead. I kept hearing about the “trapizzino” which is a relatively newer trendy street food that’s basically a triangular pocket of pizza dough with fillings, and quickly found a bar nearby that sold them. They come served in this very cute little stand so that it can stay upright, otherwise you’d have a big mess on your hands haha. I got the “polpetta al sugo” which is a simple meatball in tomato sauce, and it was delicious!

The Prati neighborhood near the Vatican was one of the few places I’d be that was on a Metro line, so I decided to take a train back to my hotel to change for a much-needed spa appointment. The New Yorker in me always likes exploring the world’s subway systems – in this case the Rome Metro system only has two lines and it’s pretty impossible to mess up, so it was very easy to find my way!

And man was it the right decision. The facility was beautiful, and the staff really lovely, and I ended up relaxing in the thermal area for about an hour before my appointment, enjoying their Mediterranean salt room, hydro pool with jet beds, and hot/cold foot baths. There was only one other woman in there so it was nice and quiet. Bliss.

Feeling fully refreshed, I left the spa and headed outside. The hotel happened to be right at the top of the Spanish Steps, so I wanted to walk over and check out the famous site. I was feeling too clean and relaxed to walk all the way down and all the way back up, so I just checked out the view for a little while before heading on my way.

It was the right place, though, which was empty aside from another group of tourists. It was about 6:45, so I wasn’t surprised – Italians eat very late! (If they’d be here at all – tough to tell if locals would eat here or if it was just a tourist stop, though this was the first place I encountered where the woman working there didn’t speak any English, so thinking it might be for everyone.) There were so many choices and I couldn’t make up my mind, so quickly googled some reviews to see if there was one that was recommended a lot, and based on that decided on the Scappocia – tomato, mozzarella, and spicy salami. And the people were right – it was SO good.

I was only able to eat maybe half of it, but got a to-go box and went back to my hotel and spent the night just lounging and watching TV while snacking on the rest of the pinsa. Perfect relaxing night in, especially after such an eventful early morning. Look at me actually vacationing instead of running around Rome to squeeze everything in!