Day 4: Another Country

After sleeping for about 13 hours, I awoke to shove some breakfast down my throat at the B&B which consisted mainly of a croissant and some Nutella (they love Nutella over here and so do I so I mean something is destined to happen). So then we rushed off to the metro to take a trip to Vatican City, or the country of the Holy See. Until the beginning of this trip I had never been in Canada or Italy, so this will be the 3rd country that I've entered on this trip, and the smallest in the world! (Unless you count Sealand)

First we went through the Vatican Museum, which is not much more than an art gallery with a bunch of pictures of "Madonna and baby." Though, we did find this one painting (shown on the right) to be quite interesting. It depicts many people looking towards the heavens, but one person in particular is fixated on what we call the "holy belt." Plus there are a ton of flying babies, and if that doesn't grab your attention you are a lost cause.










We also found several rooms which were lined with art (actually painted onto the walls) by Raphael. This one in particular (shown to the left) I remember seeing in AP World History in the book. Mrs. Nabuda pointed it out to the class and for some reason I remembered it and did eventually find the original. It's called the "School of Athens" and it is a gorgeous painting. One of the few I'm actually impressed with.

I'm sorry I suck at orienting these pictures. This blog is probably hideous. After the museum you get dumped into the Sistine Chapel. No pictures unfortunately, but Michelangelo's ceiling is completely fantastic, and going from seeing the fake Michelangelo painting the fake ceiling in Spaceship Earth to actually seeing the real thing was my favorite part of the museum.

Though I'm not religious, the architecture and art that organized religion manages to fund is absolutely amazing. St. Peter's Cathedral was the next step. It's massive. Absolutely massive. I saw Angels and Demons not too long ago and I didn't know until I got there that where the pastor (or whatever his position was - the Pope's assistant) burnt himself was right there! The steps down to where some Pope's are buried was right in front of you. Of course you couldn't go down into it, but you could see where it was filmed. Molto cool. (ITALIAN KINDA)

The ceiling is perhaps the most amazing part of the whole building. It's incredibly high up but it's also huge - an engineering feat in itself.  Beautiful.

We eventually left and went up (551 steps) to the top of St. Peters and got a magnificent view of St. Peter's square and the rest of Rome. Not as beautiful as Florence (where I am currently), but still, beautiful. (Shown below)

That's all we did on Day 4, but I have some more pictures I'd love to share, so here they are:

\