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June & July 2005

Rome & Vatican City

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

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beauty around me. The amount of artwork in there is amazing, and I say this even though I've only seen like a fraction of what the museums have to offer. In fact, one could spend days in there just enjoying all that art.

Now, we had entered the Vatican Museums only because we wanted to visit the Sistine Chapel. However, on hindsight, I'm so glad that we decided to enter the museums. I loved the Vatican Museums, ever single moment of it and I only wished that I had more time to explore the place. Meanwhile, I suggest that you warm up your neck before entering the museums as a lot of time will be spent craning your neck, looking at the artwork on the ceilings.

I won't go into specific details of what I saw (not that I could anyway), but I'll paint a rough picture of what I enjoyed the most in the museums. The Gallery of Maps is gorgeous. Despite holding a guidebook, Prema told us that it's the Sistine Chapel and we believed it to be so. We didn't find out that it wasn't until much later when we were close to the 'real' Sistine Chapel. Anyway it was strange that we believed that it was the Sistine Chapel. First, it wasn't a chapel. Second, it didn't quite gel with the image of Sistine Chapel that we had gotten from books or TV. Nonetheless, I was very impressed with the Gallery of Maps. The ornate hallway was covered with large maps from periods in the Vatican's history. The ceilings were covered with frescoes and giving out a soft golden glow. You can't help but be taken in by the grandeur of the hall.

After exiting the Gallery of Maps, we passed rooms filled with statues, tapestries, paintings, etc. Some of the rooms were extremely dark. I guess it must have been to protect the artwork in those rooms. After passing countless rooms, we finally reached the Sistine Chapel. Before entering the church, we saw a sign that says no photography and filming ...