Flashback Friday: Then and Now: Vatican Post

Both photos were taken at the top of St. Peter's Basilica.

July, 2000.

October 2013. Look at that--they changed the color of the box.

St. Peter's Basilica

We only took a short break between the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's.  When we got there the line was obnoxiously long--you can see the line in the second photo--wrapping around the left curve. It was even longer...Ross didn't want to wait. People said it was moving quickly. After walking around a little we went back to see how much it had moved--I didn't want to miss the duomo and St. Peter's Cupola. It really had moved quickly, so Ross stood in line while I went to get some cash from the Bancomat (ATM.) I think we waited around 45 minutes to get inside, and we headed straight for the dome.

We paid the extra 2 euro to take the elevator up, but you still have to do stairs, and they are cramped. I got sick of waiting for the elevator down and took the stairs.

View from the top of the cupola. In the center there are chairs set up for mass I guess.

I mailed some postcards from the Vatican. Two have already arrived. I haven't heard anything about the postcards we sent from Athens.

St. Peter's has several cupolas.

St. Peter's feet. Everyone (except me it seems) rubs them as they walk by so the toes are completely rubbed off his right foot and smooshed and cartoony on his left foot. I really wanted to take a photo and the old ladies behind me got angry. If I had been touching it, it would have been okay...but to have his feet there, and no one touching them seemed to bother the ladies.

Handsome Swiss Guard.

So, there were a couple of strange things in St. Peter's. There was a wall with all the Pope's names inscribed on it, but it ended at JPII. JPII's crypt was there, and something was inscribed on the floor. I also thought he was there, on display, but apparently that was Pope John XXIII. It was creepy, and people were taking photos.

Vatican Museum

Just a selection of the photos I took in the Vatican Museum. We burned out after 4 hours...and so we didn't see everything.

Looking down onto the courtyard.

Must take photo of peacock.

We saw tons of sculptures. The flowing, almost transparent look of the fabric is amazing.

River God.

The staircase is a double spiral. Last time we were there you could race down the spirals and see who won. This time one side was closed off and there were "speed bumps" at the beginning to keep you from going fast.

I'm Baaaaa-aaack!

Well, my few and faithful readers, as you know, I've been away away for two weeks on an impromptu vacation.  I'm back and have almost 1500 photos to sift through. I'll try to share the best ones. Amazingly enough I'm not feeling jet lagged. I am worn out though. I wish I'd taken my pedometer, I'm curious just how much we walked. My feet and shoulders are sore. It will take a while to recover from this vacation.

Here is a photo of me in the Vatican Museum.