We took the subway to The Vatican City first and visited the museums for two hours. The museums entrance and exits are on the other side of the wall from the main opening of the city wall entrance. The Vatican has been its own independent state and not part of Italy since 1929 so there is only one entrance in. Otherwise a huge continuous brick wall surrounds the entire place.
I'm okay with walking in a museum for awhile but I started to feel cagey as you have to follow a one-way pattern with hundreds of other people. When we finally left, we followed the outside wall around and came upon St. Peter's Square and Basilica and then we were astounded at the immensity of it. We sat and ate our lunch on the stair of the square to enjoy the sights for a bit.
After, we entered the Basilica, but first we had to go through a metal detector and second, we had to be viewed by clothes' cops to make sure that our shoulders and legs were covered correctly. Many people were turned away to buy a cheap shawl from the sellers on the streets or asked to take their scarf off and wrap it around themselves. On entering the Basilica, we were struck by the quietness - even though there were thousands of people in there at the same time.
We first went to see 'The Holy Door' where several people would run up to the small metal plate, a black square in the middle of a huge wall which has The Pope's seal in it, and put their hand on it for a picture. Every 25 years on Christmas Eve in a Holy year, the Pope bows 3 times, waves a hammer and then the door is removed. At the end of the year, it is replaced.
We ended up staying longer than we wanted to but it's not every day that one gets to visit the largest holy Catholic place which is world renowned.
We walked some more (famous words of our European trips), and came upon the coolest little church that seemed as if it were made out of sand dribbled at the beach and was squeezed in between two taller buildings. Then on to Spagna Square which is surrounded by the wealthiest shopping streets and small alcoves where you can enjoy liquids. Every store, the ones that we can't afford to shop in that is, line the small streets with an almost nonexistent sidewalk. One store, in order to stop 'in-lookers' like me, had its windows tinted a dark black - Gorgio Vanni.
We are bombarded with so much beauty and difference at every turn of the head that by 4:00 we were done in. We headed to a fresh food store, made a salad and had fruit for supper. Another ho-hum day. ;)
