view from the top

Today we spent the entire day at the Vatican. By 8:30 we were in line to get into the Vatican Museum, which ended up being quite an overwhelming yet still stunning experience with so many things to take in. From there we grabbed lunch from one of the vendor's stands and went to wait in line for St. Peter's security. Luckily we got through quickly and got to lounge for a while in the near 60 degree sunshine! Father Graham gave us a great tour of some of the highlights of St. Peter's, making that portion of the day significantly more digestable.

After all of that there was still more of the cathedral to experience, in fact the very worst and the very best parts of the day. We got into a reasonable-looking line to get up to the top of the dome, but ended up moving -- very slowly -- from one line to the next for well over an hour! We stood and waited and almost left.. but finally made it to the front of the line to find a shockingly high price of 7 euros just to get to the top. First came the cramped but fairly quick 3 floor elevator, then the less bearable narrow, slanted steps, and finally the tiny & winding stairs to the very tip top (320 steps total, to be exact). The view was unbeliveable! No photograph could ever do justice to the sight of a sunset over the city on one side, St. Peter's square by Bernini to the front, and the moon rising over the city and distant mountains to the other side. I promise to get my pictures up here as soon as I can, just to give a taste of the sights. As if that isn't enough, we also got a much closer look at the decorations on the inside of the dome, decorated by Michelangelo himself. We stood there for so long, just gazing at the spectacular pictures and listening to the evening mass as it happened below. I could not be happier that we chose to take the long journey to the top!