A race for the golden ticket
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2008
1
46
56
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Rome,
Lazio,
Italy
Monday, October 6, 2008
When you arrive at the Vatican City, which you can see from just about anywhere in Rome, a great sight stands before you - a match for any palatial building in the world, quite a magnificent sight. Whether this is supposed to scare people into Catholicism or simply remind the world where all our offerings at church go, I was not quite sure.
Once you reach the steps you are greeted with airport style security - in fact I think I have entered most airports in the UK easier, but none the less it was very efficient and orderly. One interesting fact I learnt before my visit is that on becoming a state of their own, the heads of the Holy See at the time did not trust the Italians enough to serve and protect them, so instead opted to hire out security to the Swiss armed forces - and this situation still remains today.
After clearing security, we set about finding the now infamous Bronze door where the golden invitation could be sought - for anyone reading this that plans to go, it is certainly not bronze, but is the first large door on the right after security clearance, which is guarded as no admittance to this building is granted to ordinary folk. We managed to get two tickets for the following day's main event - something I had personally been looking forward to as a highlight of our trip. The entire Vatican is a special place, regardless of religious beliefs or not. We visited the Cupola whilst we were there, which is the dome at the top, a walk of 522 steps (I think) - quite tiring, very steep and extremely narrow. We then went to see the tombs of past Popes, which seemed to be more a shrine to the late great Pope John Paul II, and then on to the main attraction St Peters Basilica, which again is rather special. We then ate our lunch and pulled our aching bodies back to the campsite ready for the next day.
7am prompt we were awake ready to tackle a long day. The Pope was due to come on at 10.30am, and we thought it could take up to 2 hours to clear security - in fact it only took 20mins, but never mind. We took our seats at 9am and waited, in the heat of a very hot and sticky day, for the main attraction. Beside us sat a group of Croatians, who must have been a church choir and duly entertained us for the next hour with songs. That was until the Pope arrived to rapturous applause, and began circling the crowd in his Pope Mobile which in itself was quite a sight. He then began to speak to the crowd in no less than 7 languages, including English, and seemed quite a cool guy. We got some great pictures over the next two hours & even Claire enjoyed it all, soaking up the atmosphere of this once in a lifetime event - although I did get the feeling she would have been happier if it had been a slightly shorter service.
We then headed for the ruins and the Coliseum, which too were quite extraordinary, and far larger than what we had seen in Lake Garda and Verona - although we felt they could have been doing a lot more to promote the ruins. By this point our camera had run out of battery, due to Claire's fascination with taking photos of just about everything from every angle imaginable - including, would you believe ants the other day. So we bought a disposable for a staggering 15 euro's, so the photos from here you will have to wait for until we get home I'm afraid.
We arrived back at camp at 7pm ready to hit the road the next day to Florence.....
