I could see the platform on which our train was due to arrive displayed on the screen by around 8.55, but no Mansi in
sight, with 10 minutes to go before our train left I started fuming at her, I
couldn’t go chasing as I had both our suitcases with me, and suddenly I saw her
and waved to come soon. Both of us raced to the platform and located our
compartment which as luck would have it was almost three forth of the way down the platform. The train was similar to the one we had taken to reach here and
once again the luggage compartment was full. I managed to add my bag on top of
another in a gap in the rack; Mansi’s was too big to fit so we left it in the
aisle and headed to our seats.
The train was packed being a Monday morning with corporate
types and tourists. One lady actually gave her seat to her large suitcase and stood
in the aisle almost for the whole journey till someone took pity on her and
pointed to an empty seat down the aisle.
Our journey was about an hour and a half long again thru a lot of tunnels so we didn't glimpse much of the countryside as we reached
Rome which was bright and sunny. Rome Termini station is larger than Firenze SMN, with
a metro station in the basement and long distance and local tracks on the main
floor. Lots of restaurants, stores on the ground floor, very noisy and chaotic
with crowds of people on the station. We exited the station after checking with
a local on the exit to use, getting out we got lots of mis-directions to our
hotel and ended up in one of the streets parallel to the station completely
lost. As luck would have it an Italian man who we stopped to ask for
directions, looked at our voucher and called the hotel number and took
directions. He was wonderful, he escorted us down the streets to our hotel; he didn’t understand
a word of English! Our communication was solely by sign language
We said our thanks to him as we waved good bye outside our
hotel which as it turned out was just at the end of the street besides the
station, we were walking in the opposite direction all along.
After checking in, we headed to our room on the third floor,
the Nord Nuova Hotel had definitely seen better days, and the lift was old
fashioned the type which opens on both sides. The rooms definitely looked
jaded, this time our room faced the front of the hotel and had a tiny bathroom,
the smallest we have had so far on our trip.
We had chosen an Isango Vatican Skip the Line tour at 1pm
and decided to head out, grab some lunch and take the metro to the Vatican; the
metro seemed the quickest option. It was around 11.30am and we had around 1.5
hours in hand. We walked to the station and decided on a quick lunch at McD,
grabbing a burger and a drink.
Heading downstairs to the metro station which is in the
basement of Termini Station we discover a strange system to purchase tickets at
the window, you have to take a token and await your turn, once the ticket
vendor announces your token number, you head to the window and purchase the
ticket...there were quite a few people in the queue. I stood in the queue while
Mansi who had spotted a vending machine headed towards it.
We met an enterprising Italian guy standing by the vending
machine which was in Italian only helping tourists purchase tickets for a token
fee (of course), since we were rushed we moved to the vending machine and with
his help purchased 2 tickets to Ottaviano, it was a minimum ticket of I think 3
Euros each.
Ottaviano is on Line A of the Rome Metro System, there is
another Line B too and the station is well marked showing the direction to take
to get to the platforms...only hitch, it’s a long way to reach the platform, we
ended up walking down multiple corridors following the signs on the walls to
Line A towards Batistini, the other end of the line is towards Anagnina (the
last stations on both ends of Line A).
The train was sparsely crowded and we both got seats after
one or two stations. We eagerly kept an eye on the passing stations to ensure
we could jump off at Ottaviano. The train was quite clean and air-conditioned
as were the platforms. It’s the 6th
station from Termini and a very short 10 - 15 minutes ride. There were hardly
any people at the station so we couldn’t ask our way to the Vatican; we simply
followed the exit signs till we reached the street. The station has signs
showing the way to go to the Vatican and St.Peter.
At street level we could see the Walls of the Vatican right
down the straight road leading up to it. We walked a bit quickly as it was
nearing 12.15, along the way we were accosted by multiple Indian tour agents
all hustling for various tours of the Vatican. Reaching the Vatican walls we
knew from our voucher that the pickup point was in one of the lanes off the
Vatican Museum, getting directions from a couple of stores we finally found our
tour agency in a tiny basement in one of the side streets.
The place was filled with tourists all heading to the
Vatican, we paid for our tickets, got our hands stamped and collected our
tickets. We were also given headsets to be used on the tour to be able to hear
our guide. Out total group for the 1pm tour was around 50 people in all. We
trooped after our guide carrying a stick with a bright blue cloth tied at the
end to help us track her through the crowds.
The walk to the Vatican Museum entrance was a short one, the
lobby is huge with X-ray machines like at the airport where one has to queue to
get our hand bags checked along with jackets etc. Large back packs are not
allowed and have to be dropped off at the check luggage; Mansi had to do that
with her back pack. We waited for our guide to complete the formalities; some
people from our group to visit the washrooms located in the basement and
listened to the instructions from her on how to conduct ourselves in the
Museum.
Next we headed up a long escalator after showing our tickets
to the security guard; the escalator avoids walking up stairs and ends up on
the second floor balcony where the tour starts. The balcony is simply
beautiful, a very large space with benches on the sides for people to sit and
rest, several water fountains where one can refill water bottles (yes they are
allowed here, we filled ours). The St Peters Basilica dome dominates the sky
line here looking splendid against the bright Roman sky. We both posed and took
pictures as did many of our companions. We could see a beautiful green well
tended garden with benches filled with people below, there was a large water
fountain in the centre.
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| St Peter's Basilica Dome as viewed from the Vatican Museum Balcony |
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| Vatican Gardens |
We headed downstairs to the garden, our guide pointed out various sculptures placed in the garden which were gifts; including a large copper coloured dome representing the Earth, a huge avocado carved from stone.
Here she made us gather around a huge sign board showing the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, she explained the progression of the last
judgement by Michelangelo; guides are not allowed inside the chapel so she told
us what to look for when we are inside, the restoration process, a small
portion that was left un-restored and where we should look for it. The various
nuances of the last judgement, a self portrait included by Michelangelo, the
process used by him in painting the fresco and the difficulties faced by him to
ensure the colours matched across the complete painting, at that time the
process used was to use a wet plaster and paint on it while the plaster was
wet, once it dried that was it, also the colour changed once the plaster dried.
There was no re-work possible; every part had to be painted just once so it had
to be perfect. His assistants were tasked with ensuring consistency in the
colours, they had to be vibrant to be viewed from a distance and the figures
had to be proportional when viewed from the floor. All of these presented great
technical difficulties especially for the ageing Michelangelo.
Next we headed into the gallery of busts filled with
historical Roman sculptures from 3 BC to 3 AD. Quite a few of them were
headless, one remarkable one pointed out by our guide had intact eyes in a
beautiful carved head, the rest of the statues were having heads but the eyes
were missing...this is the only one which still has them to date.
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| Only Roman Bust in the world which still has intact "eyes" |
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| View of the city of Rome from Vatican Museum |
Then onto the Pius Clementine Museum; where we saw the gilded bronze statue of Hercules; the only one which was not melted away to make weapons. We marvelled at the details in the mosaic on the floor taken from a roman bath, then onto the Greeks with the sarcophagus of Emperor Constantine’s daughter which had grape vines sculpted on its edges.
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| Bronze Statue of Hercules in the Vatican Museums |
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| Mosaic from a Roman Bath |
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| Sarcophagus of the daughter of Emperor Constantine |
Onwards we headed to the Gallery of Tapestries with some
colourful Flemish tapestries hanging on the walls; some were very similar to the
ones we had seen in the St.Marks Basilica Museum.
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| Flemish Tapestry |
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| Flemish Tapestry |
Then onto the Gallery of Maps which has around 40 maps of Italy and the World represented on the walls in the form of frescoes, the ceilings in all the rooms are jaw dropping beautiful and words can’t describe them.
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| Vatican Museums Ceiling |
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| Vatican Museums Ceiling |
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| Vatican Museum Ceiling |
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| Room of Maps Museum Ceiling at the Vatican |
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| Maps of Italy - Vatican Museum |
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| Map of Italy - Vatican Museums |
From here we headed into the Sistine Chapel without our tour
guide who asked us to locate her beyond the exit gate. Each group is just
allowed 15 minutes inside the chapel and no talking and no photography. We
entered the large rectangular room which was already filled with tourists,
there were benches against the wall which were filled with people, a screen
filled the other side of the room and beyond it we could see a ramp leading to
the exit. It was quite dark inside the chapel and my eyes took some time to
adjust to the gloom and then I looked up.....wow, I can’t describe the feeling
that overcame me when I saw the last judgement, it is grandiose, vibrant, well
proportioned and one can view the minute details of each panel. The colours of the
restored portions stand out in stark contrast when compared to the one square
of dark, grimy looking un-restored part. I truly appreciated the hard work and
skill portrayed not just by the original painters but also the painstaking
restoration work done since then.
We stayed in the room for what felt like 30 minutes at
least, bit reluctant to leave but forced to as our necks started hurting from
craning upwards to admire the handiwork of various artists. Leaving by the exit
we couldn’t spot our guide in the passage outside the exit, we thought she must
be further on and continued into the room. Soon we realized that we had lost
her, she must be at one of the other exits we never noticed. We didn’t have any
way to contact her either. It was around 2 hours into our tour and we were a
bit tired so decided to head downstairs down the spiral staircase past the
Vatican stores selling various souvenirs to the garden cafeteria to get some
food. After eating and using the washroom located in the basement, we collected
Mansi’s back pack and decided to head to the tour agent’s office just outside
the Vatican museum to hand over our headsets.
Imagine our surprise when we reach the office and it’s
closed! No signs nothing stating when or if it’s opening again. We were told
that we would be fined Euros 100 if the headsets were not returned and since
Isango had my card details I was concerned about that. After wondering if we
should return the next day...but we had the hop on hop off bus all day
long...Mansi spotted a small grill through which we could push the headsets,
but we didn’t have anything to put them in, Mansi finally managed to find a bag
with a draw string closure and added a note with my name, our guides name and
our Italian cell number and tied the draw string to the grill and dropped it
down the window into the closed office.
That done we headed to St Peter’s Square and the Basilica as
that was the last thing on our tour and we had missed it. Just as we walk into
the square who should we run into but our guide, she was so happy to see us as
were we to tell her about the headsets, she told us it’s the guide who gets
fined for any missing participants or headsets and we two were the only ones
missing, the rest of the group located her after the Sistine Chapel. They spent
some time trying to find us in vain. We thanked her for all the wonderful and
enlightening information she had shared with us on the tour.
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| St Peter's Square - Vatican |
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| St Peter's Basilica - Vatican |
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| St Peter's Basilica - Vatican |
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| St Peter's Basilica |
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| St Peter's Basilica |
Mansi wanted to climb the dome so she headed upstairs and I
chose to sit in the portico taking in the evening breeze blowing from the
square. She took around 40 minutes to return all excited about the fabulous
view and the panoramic pictures she took. We decided to head home and have
dinner near our hotel in one of the restaurants close to the station, we had
seen some Indian ones and Mansi was keen to try some flavours from home.
On the way to the metro station we spotted some street
vendors selling clothes and Mansi liked some dresses which she picked up. The
vendors turned out to be Indian, illegal immigrants from east India. At the station we purchased tickets from the
vending machines, validated them and took the metro back to Termini
station. The Indian restaurant turned
out to be some fake version of Indian and not too appealing so we walked down
the road and decided to eat at an Italian one.
We had some table wine and I had chicken and Mansi ordered some ravioli.
Her ravioli was quite good; my chicken dish was all right.
We were both tired as we headed back to our hotel. Strangely
both of us had been having sleep deprived nights throughout the trip. We had never had
a full night’s sleep at any of our hotels always waking up at odd hours; I kept
waking up in the middle of the night and very early in the morning, then
finding it difficult to sleep again. We put it down to jet lag and being in
different hotels. The Rome hotel room was the noisiest, but I slept like a baby
that night. Poor Mansi had another sleepless night. I woke up feeling totally
refreshed the next day.
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