Vatican City

Oops! I forgot to write about our trip to Vatican City when we were in Rome last month.

Vatican City, officially known as Vatican City State or State of Vatican City is an independent state within the city of Rome. Vatican City is home to about 1,000 residents and is the smallest state in the world by both population and size.

Vatican City is a walled state that looks like this:

During our visit we went to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.

To gain entry to St. Peter’s Basilica, you must be modestly dressed. There are acceptable attire signs posted everywhere, many of which included photos of appropriate and inappropriate attire. The lass in the photo below (wearing very high heels and a jacket longer than her shorts) thought she was appropriately dressed. Security thought otherwise and denied her admission which completely baffled her.

The Sistine Chapel was, um, how do I put this delicately… overrated?

Yes, the paintings are literal works of art and I was in awe but only for a few mere seconds. Once you enter the Vatican Museum (which can take several hours if you do not book in advance), you have to bob-and-weave through the IKEA-like layout of the museum to get to the Sistine Chapel. It took us 45 minutes to navigate the “shortcut” to the Sistine Chapel.

Once we arrived at the Sistine Chapel, we found that there was nowhere to stand because the place was absolutely packed. We spent a couple of minutes with the other sardines and then fled. It was impossible to get a decent photo between people stepping on my toes to people bumping into me to people blocking my view. Almost all of my photos from our visit are blurry and I do not know why that is.

I like that I visited Vatican City and stepped inside the Sistine Chapel and it’s a definite “do” if the weather is unpleasant and you are on the hunt for an activity to soak up a couple of hours indoors but I do not know if I would go so far as to say it is a “must-do”.

Some photos for your viewing pleasure…