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June & July 2005

Rome & Vatican City

Jeremy Koh
2005-11-05 11:48:59

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we had to leave the Vatican City. Then we had to walk along the outer walls of the Vatican City to the Vatican Museums. It was a long and tiring walk. We had arrived in Italy during a heatwave and the sun's rays were unforgiving. After asking around for directions, we finally saw the entrance of the Musei Vaticani (Vatican Museums).

Somehow I had the impression that admission to the Sistine Chapel was free. I was wrong (well, on the day that we were there anyway). Entry to the museums, which includes the Sistine Chapel, were free only on the last Sunday of the month. Since it wasn't, we had to pay admission fees to enter. By producing our student passes, we qualified for the student price of �8 instead of �12. Now, the Vatican Museums was huge. It boasts one of the world's largest art collections. Since we didn't have a lot of time to spare, we decided to be selective in our choices of what to see. We decided to head towards the Sistine Chapel, the reason why we were here in the first place.

There was signs pointing in all directions and I can't remember how we made our choice, but anyway we started walking in one of the directions. The situation here is similar to that at St. Peter's Basilica. There's so much to see that I don't even know where to start. And as I'm writing this travelogue, I realize that because there's so much stuff to see (and partly because we rushed through the museum), I've also forgotten a lot of what I've seen. In a way, the exhibits and artwork are meant to be appreciated in person, and even though I may have forgotten where I saw what, I can still remember how I felt then. I was amazed by the amount of beauty that was in there. In a way, it was almost like sensory overload. The eyes were taking in so much that after a while, my brain stopped processing what I saw. Everything was so wonderful that after a while, I felt as if I was numb to the beauty ...