Eurotrip 2011: Vatican Museum for two Pt.2

Sign after sign for the Sistine Chapel came and went and it was no where to be seen. Then, like magic, the stairwells got tighter and more rustic. We were almost there. A bathroom line appeared, followed by a small cafeteria and stairs to a smoking area. Last rest stop before going into the world famous meeting ground for Roman Catholic elite as well as arguably the most famous ceiling of artwork ever produced...but for now I was thirsty. We go into a bad excuse for a line and got some drinks. I chugged a bottle of water, strategized with Beth on next steps (it was already ~3pm) then made our way to the main event.

Unfortunately there are no images of this part of the journey; while plenty of people were going against the Vatican security presence, taking pictures and video of the ceiling, I respected the rules and took some time to listen to my digital tour guide. The audio player described the artists who provided material as well as the material and what it referenced. Raphael's ceiling piece and the process behind it was examined, as well as the large-scale refresh of the Sistine Chapel's artwork, which took place a decade or so ago. The atmosphere was cool and there was a constant low murmur of conversations about everything to be seen, broken up by security's firm requests for silence and "move along" to the endless waves of tourists entering the Chapel. The first thing I did on my way in was locate 'The Creation of Adam'. My eyes then wandered over all the other pieces I've only seen in textbooks. There were several hundred people present at the time and no real place to sit. It was an awesome experience. On our way out we saw that some people were walking through a shortcut door for tour groups only. We took a mental note and went through the regular exit. We ended up into a modern art exhibit pathway, then got to another hallway with books and other Vatican related items to buy. With no real exit revealing itself, Beth asked a cashier how to get out. The gentlemen chuckled and pointed us towards to exit.


Exit ahead...or so we thought.



We ended up in a large bookstore type area where the Vatican Post Office was housed. Beth and I bought postcards and shipped them home. She sent one to her very Catholic Grandma Joan and good friend Liz and I sent one to my parents. On the same floor there was a wooden scale model of Vatican City which was quite impressive. Somewhere around shooting that pic I lost my lens cap. We made it all the way down the steps of the Vatican Museum exit (see above) and I ran back up and looked everywhere. Resigned to it's loss I got my camera bag back and we made our way down the Vatican City wall to St. Peters Square. My take away from the Vatican Museum was that, regardless of arguments of how all the works were collected, there was more art there than anywhere else on earth. In a way this fact was both good and bad for the time we had to spend there. Of course it's great to be able to see so much of mans creations from the long history of humanity, but there was really too much to see for anyone even in a day's time. We were later told that if you spent one minute at every exhibit in the Vatican Museum it would take you 13 days to see it all.

After a short stroll we entered the place of legend. St. Peter's square was bigger than I expected. Looking around you could immediately tell that the previous Pope was quite the hard act to follow. The next thing we noticed was the line to get into St. Peter's Basilica. Earlier that morning we asked our substitute tour guide if we could use the tickets we received to get into the Basilica per our initial tour arrangement and she told us yes. However, we didn't know how the tour guides waved their magic wands for this one. Rather than getting in line, since it was already 5pm and our energy was low as ever, we walked to catch a cab back to the hotel. While looking for cabs we stumbled onto a rally for the Rome chapter of Harley Davidson enthusiasts. It was quite the spectacle.

Next time, St. Peter's Basilica. Next time.

We returned home to pop into one of the other cafes we hadn't frequented yet. They had liquor, which was the biggest draw, as we wanted some for the cruise. Bacardi and panini's in hand, we got to our room and had lunch. Later that evening, we ended up back at Il Capitello for our last meal in Rome. We dined and sipped vino outside while observing locals and visitors from multiple countries work their way around town, along with homeless sleeping on the street within a stones throw. The shop keepers made sure to keep randomly approaching vagrants from interrupting their customers experience (much appreciated), but it didn't happen to often that night. It was a reminder of the current economic state of the world, Italy specifically, but in my mind was oddly normal. Another great meal enjoyed, we headed back for a short night of springy sleep. In the morning, we'd be getting a shuttle to the Civitavecchia Port to start our Mediterranean Sea cruise.

Eurotrip 2011: Vatican Museum for two Pt.1

The non-tour line to get into the museum can be seen on the left. It wrapped around a kept going for another 70 yards.

After another crap night of sleep on the springboard mattresses at Hotel Planet Rome, we had to get up early and make it to the Spanish Steps across the street from the entrance to the Vatican Museum by 9:30am. We had a few things working against us that I didn't get into during the last post. To make a long story short, I bought an international use SIM card for the trip and borrowed a smart phone from my friend Paul. We used the phone successfully after arriving in Italy, but the data features were all useless, including google maps which is the main reason I got a SIM card and filled it with minutes. I also bought a outlet converter for me to charge my laptop, phones and camera accessories. Due to a 'mix-up' shall we say, both of these items were taken out of commission. This lead to some problems; neither of us wear watches and we had no ability to charge any electronics until we got onto the cruise ship that Sunday and today was Saturday. So to save batteries, I left my US cell phone (HTC Evo) turned off, only turning it on as needed, due to its notoriously short battery life. I programmed my US phone so that it had the local time displayed, which was GMT+2 during this time of year. We woke up to the alarm on Beth's US phone that I hadn't programmed yet. Doing the math from EST, we thought it was 8am when it was really 9am. After our cab dropped us off at the Vatican wall, the time info on the first couple shots I took left me confused. I figured it was just a mistake and stopped for breakfast since it'd be a long day of walking once again.

Even though our rush clouded the experience, we stopped in a nice restaurant a block away from the Vatican Museum entrance. We ordered food, then I took the pic above. The time stamp on that image was really bothering me so we asked the waiter for confirmation. Yep, we were off an hour, it was 10am and we had missed our 3hr tour which had cost a few hundred to book. I scarfed down my eggs paid the bill and we quickly made our way to the next Dark Rome tour that was were our meeting spot was. The rep let me know our tour had gone already, but she could take our voucher and bring us in on her tour which wasn't really a tour, but rather a free for all that let you skip the line. This was the start of the longest day of my life. Ha just kidding, but not really.

At 10:30am this new tour made it's way to the entrance line work-around (the main line was entering from the left of the pic above). This is a seemingly generic process where the tour guide holds a piece of paper with identification on it, in the air, and a bunch of people follow them inside. The line for those who hadn't booked in advance was long and hadn't wavered since we had eaten. We got inside to relive our airplane boarding experience once again; a row of about eight security stations with scanners awaited. Little did we know at the time that this would be a running joke all cruise week. I got through metal detector check to have a security officer randomly tell me I had to check my camera bag, which was the only thing I brought with me. It was packed with spare memory, batteries and other accessories, but in the disorienting nature of the process, and lack of English used, I didn't take anything out of the bag as my camera was already around my neck. Yep.

Once my bag was checked and I received a ticket for retrieval, the tour group scattered and we made our way upstairs to the main ticketing desk. There were plenty of options for those who didn't have a tour guide, including a headset and digital player that you could use to get information on anything you were looking at, using a numbering system. We got our equipment, map of the Vatican Museum and started making out way towards the start of the exhibits. There were signs everywhere giving you a general idea of where places in the museum were, but no real specifics; I found this to be synonymous with most direction receiving experiences during our time in Rome. The beginning of the museum started off with ancient artifacts collected around the world. Starting with figurines from the ancient Mayan civilization it them moved to Egyptian ruins and early African carvings.

As we proceeded the artifacts decreased with age and before we knew it an hour and changed had gone by. The tour we missed was 3 hours long and supposedly visited the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The thought of this Gilligan's Island reenactment became unfathomable (or should I say realized) as hours passed in the Museum with no real idea of where the exit was. To be honest, there were multiple reasons why the trip through the museum was taking so long. The main reason was that I was taking pictures as we went and the lighting conditions were such that I had to take relatively long exposures in most situations. I had no tripod, just ISO/aperture adjustments and my hands. I found myself leaning against anything I could to take keepers and by the end of this day I was a better photographer. The second contributor to problem was tourists like ourselves. In order to capture anything decent I'd have to contend with the thousands of people all sharing the same space. As time passed the 'waves' of people became predictable and work got smoother.


A break in this wave was a minute or so away



On our way between exhibits there were large windows that gave a hint of this museum buildings' design. There was a huge courtyard inside of the four wings of the Vatican Museum, whose centerpiece was a large bronze globe that was actively in motion on it's many layers. We kept walking in the direction all the signs said the Sistine Chapel was, but all we found were literally thousands of more rooms with exhibits. As we walked the hallway ceiling artwork started off being works of pretty accomplished artists; Raphael, Michelangelo, etc. Lesser known artists filled the void elsewhere.

I shot like a madman and my camera started to get warm. Next thing you know the new 16GB card I bought specifically for this trip started giving me CF Error messages. My heart sunk. I had shot about 700 images so far and to think they were all gone was a little frustrating. I also had no other cards with me because they were in my bag. It was great to see plenty of other people with large bags about this time; and don't think I felt singled out, Vatican Security randomly selected a wide range of people to check bags; women, children, old men. I really didn't know what the overall security plan was, they were half paying attention all the while...but I digress. We got a little closer to the Sistine Chapel, going through random room after room. About 15minutes later I tried to turn on my camera again and my memory cards image count returned! I was back in business. Hopefully I could make it back to my bag without any other issues.


One of the rest areas on the way to the Sistine Chapel. My camera works again!



Green Thumb - Ep.3

Since the last update about four weeks have passed. The plants have grown quite well, with the coming of more frequent rain showers adding much more nutrients to the soil than what we get from the spout a la Harford County Water & Sewer. The tomatoes have shown up in bunches and we had the fortune of picking the first two larger maters' you saw in the  previous post, perfectly vine ripened and delicious (see week 8 below). Beth ended up slipping me some home grown (initially) without my knowledge, via a salad, a couple days later. If we had more potted area to do so, I would've liked to have a couple more plants to up the bounty. We're in August now and the plants have both hit their stride; there is now a tomato count of about 10 on each plant, the second much larger plant finally catching up in the production department. The basil is doing good as well, sending out bunched extended spears of new leaves, but now leaning in different sections mainly due to heavy winds and rain. We've had some pretty quick yet hard storms, but thankfully the stems of this plant are resilient and flexible, so nothing has been lost. On the occasions that I had the time to inspect the basil plant in detail, I've found that many different insects have made it home and/or a place to acquire food.

Here is the latest break down of progress:

Week 7:

Week 8:

Week 9:

In the second to last shot from week 9 you can see how much the larger of our two tomato plants has perched itself on top of our decks railing in a few places; these spots are literally load-bearing as the tomatoes beneath them have gotten heavy. Beth tied the left most branch to the railing to help support it through wind gusts. Two delicious tomatoes have been harvested at this point, about 20 are around the corner with a few more showing up every week. It's been a successful outing thus far. I wonder how the radishes are doing...