Karate Monkey: Love and Loathing

I'll preface this post by just saying the 2 most interesting things I saw today are not here. There is a strict no photographs policy when it comes to the Sistine Chapel, and of course the Catacombs where Popes of eras past are laid to rest.

Secondly, further to my complaint from the last post about the aggressive tactics used by the street merchants and shady tour guides, the best evade is to not make eye contact. Nuff said. If you need to, you'll figure it out yourself one day.

We picked up our audio guide mp3 players and started our tour at the Vatican Museums. There is more there then you can post. Nic and I maybe managed to see half the exhibits and from that only a fragment of images are posted here. I hope you'll forgive, but if you can live vicariously through me, then one of us is doing it wrong.

Also I should mention, the with the exception of the Sistine Chapel (Omitted from this post), the Audio guide tracks tended to focus more on the history how a particular item or part of the museum came to be formed. Information regarding what we saw their in was harder to come by. Which is fair. They probably don't really know anyways. If they did, my bullshit detectors would be screaming.

Such as this Mummy from the Egypt exhibit. Its a dead thing. The more you tell me about it the less I will believe you. Get it?

Now that we have the ground rules sorted, lets continue the tour.

The art here is impressive though to say the least.

Below is the Map room, which is unfortunate for the maps. They were nice, Tolkien-esc, hand painted maps from various regions of Italy circa the 15 century (or whatever). But if you took a bunch of time painting maps, as some one did, would you want your life's work to have to compete with a ceiling like this?

I'd be in touch with my union rep pretty damn quick!

There is too much to show. Below is art from a Polish painter about a war that a Polish King won on in front of Vienna against the bad guys.

Yeah I know. I should have written some of this down.

There were pretty things, shiny things and some things that were just beautiful in the museum walk. Beauty is everywhere here. But I also found myself drawn to some of the darker representations of Christian History.

Below are a couple of tapestries that represent the murder of innocence. (Again don't quote me please). Mother trying to keep their children from being sacrificed.

The hanging of priests.

And below of are some selections from the contemporary era. The pope of the time (1970's ?) in an effort to mend the relationship between artists and the church, stated that the voice of artists must be heard once again in their representations of religious history. Call me dark, but these are some of my favorite pieces I saw today.

Nic and I went through the Sistine chapel, which was packed. Our audio tour kept suggesting to us that we move around the chapel to view various portions of the art, on the side walls, the front of the chapel and rear and most prominently, Michelangelo's work on the ceiling. It was all beautiful, but we couldn't take it all in because the Chapel was so full of people.

My feelings were similar with the Coliseum. These major tourist attraction truly pander to a quantity of experiences instead of quality. You can only take in some much when you can't even move around a room because of all the people.

Whatever. Our tour ended. And we exited. Though the cafeteria. And a bunch of souvenir shops. Then some more less important exhibits. Then a windy ramp, that turned into a stair case. Then there was a speed break with a bunch of kids (Every school tour from Europe was happening btw. Forgot to mention. ) bunched up in front of it.

Finally we got out of the museum into more tourists and traffic. Ask Nic my patience level for crowds. I blew off steam by walking down the road instead of sidewalk.

Felt good. Good for the marriage too.

Ok so St. Peter's Basilica is free to enter. The line up is an hour long but if I can do this one thing I can earn the right to never come back here, right? Vatican check off, yeah? You get it.

We waited in line for an hour. And understand this. The ground in Rome is not pavement. It;s cobblestones and brick. My feet were in pain as we waited. A few times I looked at Nic and said I don't think I can do this. She'd reply, "Whatever you want. I've seen this before".

Damn Catholics.

I toughed it out. We made it inside.

I guess this is where my day started to have purpose. St. Peter's is truly the most impressive church in the Christian world. I was impressed beyond words. My day highlighted again by something I can't show you , but being able to wander into the crypt that holds the remains of Popes from Christian history.

Nic prays at the tomb of Pope John Paul II who passed 2005 but was cannonized.