Planes, Train, etc. ~ Part 7

Let's try this again, shall we? In the top photo: an ornate entry on an otherwise plain wall, to the Vatican Museum. There are 1400 rooms in the museum, so it is impossible to see them all. They have color-coded routes through specific eras and types of art, and you can choose the route that most do, which leads eventually to the Sistine Chapel.

Second photo: another of those sculptural trees which held my interest. They add considerably to the scenery in Rome.

Third and Fourth: sections of St. Peter's Square. It was impossible for me to get a photo showing the whole building and square at one time. Bernini's Colonnade and the statuary atop the building are both magnificent. In fact, that is a word I was heard to use frequently while in Rome.

The Sistine Chapel does not allow photos, and I didn't buy any postcards to show you. It is smaller than I had thought it would be, and with 400 people crowded in at one time, we felt rather like the proverbial sardines in a tin can. It is noisy, in spite of the fact that it is a Chapel, people talk out loud. At intervals, a guard is heard to shout "Silencio!" and I thought to myself, "he is making more noise than we are". There are benches built into the side walls, but there are too few seats, so we craned our necks backward and looked up, to the fabulous paintings which are Michaelangelo's masterpieces (at least in frescoes). My favorite of his works is the statue of David, but I will write about that when I get to the Florence portion of the trip. I think tomorrow I will begin the photos of St. Peter's Basilica, the opulence of which is not to be believed.