Vatican Museums in the Apostolic Palace

Our second day in Rome, June 5th, was to start with a reserved tour of the Vatican Museums. I got online. This is a must, we got to the museum at 9 a.m. and the line was probably already over and hour and a half long for those without reservations. We were kind of rushed, so I didn't take any pictures until we were through security and inside. I am still in awe of what the Vatican Museum was like. It was spellbinding. Absolutely amazing. The Sistine Chapel is the ultimate destination, but you must follow the path in order to get there. They walk you through these enormous hallways with tapestries from floor to ceiling. Every space on the walls and ceiling are decorated with carvings, frescoes, or expensive stone. Most of my pictures didn't come out, the lighting was just too bright. Those that did still don't do justice to what it actually felt like to walk these hallways...



Each hallway and room was filled with sculptures, paintings, frescoes, and tapestries that are exceedingly beautiful. The whole effect is beyond overwhelming, I just wish that all the other tourists were as speechless as I was.

Here is good picture of one of the tapestries...

Brian Flaherty took this picture of Carli & I. I am swiping it from his collection for this blog so you can see just how big the tapestries were.

There was another hallway that was darkened to protect the tapestries. No flash photography was allowed and none of my pictures really came out. It was filled with tapestries depicting biblical scenes and I never did find anything telling me how old they were.

Here is a very small sampling of the beautiful ceiling art...





Interspersed with the long hallways were rooms filled with many beautiful and famous paintings. Here are just a few:
The Coronation of Charlemagne...

The Victory of Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge...

This really neat painting of the angel freeing Paul...

It almost looks as though you are peering into a room instead of looking at a painting. Some of the paintings had the opposite effect and looked as though the subjects were coming right off the wall...


Then there was this painting...


It is theoriginal School of Athens, by Raphael, with Plato and Aristotle surrounded by the greatest minds of classical Greece.

It was just really overwhelming to be surrounded by that much art, wealth, and spectacular showmanship. If the goal was to impress...well, they succeeded. None of my pictures do justice to the feelings you have walking among some of the the Vatican's most treasured rooms.
Speaking of treasured rooms, we finally arrived through the maze of rooms in the Sistine Chapel. You couldn't take pictures in the Chapel itself, but I really didn't want to. Knowing that I was standing in one of the most famous rooms on the planet was enough. I still get goosebumps when I think back to the moment when I leaned my head back and looked at God Giving Life to Adam. I was in one of the most holy places in all Christendom gazing at Michelangelo's greatest masterpiece. I do not pray particularly often, at least not formally, but I did in the Sistine Chapel. One cannot stand in that room without having a profoundly spiritual experience.

We had to move on however, and there was still a great many things to see.
Here we are in one particularly spectacular hallway filled with sculptures and other stone work...



Brian and the girls went to a little cafe within the walls to rest their feet.
I wanted to see the other parts of the museum that were filled with historical artifacts from Ancient Egypt & Mesopotamia. There was also a large section on the Etruscans and early Romans. A large number Renaissance sculptures were also included, as well as this oddity that I still know nothing about...

After my little exploration expedition and drink at the cafe we were ready to move on. Here we are back where we started the morning, but we were far from being done with our sightseeing.