Vatican City {Deetour}

When you’re in Rome, it makes total sense to make a quick stopover in Vatican, so you can proudly say that you have been to another country aside from Italy. Vatican City, even though located within Rome, is an independent city-state, like Singapore and Monaco (both of which I’ve also been to, yay!) and is considered the smallest country in the world.

You can reach it by taking Rome’s Metro subway and alighting at Ottaviano or Cipro stop, which is what we did on our second day in Rome.

We bought skip-the-line tickets to the Vatican Museum through our Topdeck tour guide for €39, so we did not have to join the long queue to get into the museum.

Once inside, a tour guide led us through the place, giving us some interesting background about Vatican City and the art pieces we encountered.

I was impressed with the gorgeous grounds!

Our guide told us that we could fill our water bottles from this fountain, but my stomach didn’t agree with it and I had to rush to the toilet later on. 😐

This was how they took “portraits” in the olden days. It was definitely a lot harder than taking selfies!

I was also really impressed with all the ceiling art. The best one was Michelangelo’s masterpiece at the Sistine Chapel which unfortunately does not allow photography. 🙁

I’m sure you’ve seen photos of it, though, as I have. See the one below?

I didn’t snap that photo because as I said, no photography is allowed and I obey rules because I live in Singapore 😁. I got this from Wikipedia (which is allowed).

Anyway, this photo is at the center of the ceiling art and I was surprised to see how tiny it was from my vantage point, probably because the ceiling is so high and the painting is therefore so far away.

The tour guide told us the interesting story of how Michelangelo was primarily a sculpture, and not a painter, and was reluctant to take on the task of painting the Sistine chapel but finally caved under the pope’s relentless requests. It took him four years to complete the art work.

After we were done with our tour of the museum, we walked outside to St. Peter’s Square. It was really hot outside but the heat is worth it for these pics!

Unfortunately, we did not catch the pope, but it was still a great trip, nevertheless! I recommend it! 

Up next: La Spezia, Italy

Europe Entries:
🇳🇱 Netherlands: The Charm of Amsterdam
🇫🇷 Paris, France: Eiffel Tower | The Louvre | Champs Elysees | Seine River Cruise
🇨🇭 Switzerland: Lauterbrunnen | Jungfrau
🇫🇷🇲🇨 French Riviera: Nice, France | Monte Carlo, Monaco
🇮🇹 Italy/Vatican: Pisa | Florence | Rome | Vatican | La Spezia | Cinque Terre