Vatican City in a Day!
We spent the first part of the trip today at the Vatican Museums and the later part of the day exploring St. Peter's. The Vatican Museums were founded in 1771 and made use of the papacy's already immense collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. We saw statues, painted ceilings and walls, busts, frescoes, and tapestries. Our tour guide helped us through the Vatican Museums by concentrating on the highlights: the Raphael rooms and of course, the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was built between 1477 and 1481 and the lower walls were frescoes. A quarter of a century elapsed before Michelangelo was commissioned to fresco the chapel's ceiling. The chapel contains a second and probably greater fresco by Michelangelo, the Last Judgment that covers the entire wall behing the altar.
The Basilica di San Pietro (St. Peter's) is the world's most famous church. It was built over the shrine of St. Peter, one of the Apostles and the first pope.
We decided to go up to the interior section of the dome and then climb to the top! The view of the city is one of the finest.
The Piazza San Pietro provides St. Peter's grand setting. The piazza's vast colonnades reach out in two half-circles and are four columns deep and contain 284 columns.
We headed back on the metro and stopped for supper near Barberini Plaza.
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