Vatican City and Pantheon

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Another day and more crazy transport we got up at 6.30am because we didn’t want to be late for our 9am tickets.  We made it by 9.07am and have decided that walking would probably be faster!  I was also a little disappointed, I sneezed in front of two nuns and a priest and none of them said “bless you.”  Once again Allan, Taylor and Nicolette think my humour isn’t very funny but it keeps me entertained.  Walking around the Vatican to the entry we couldn’t help laughing at the Swiss Guards who actually look like jokers and we couldn’t believe the cue for the people who hadn’t purchased tickets in advance, it was about 500m, 4 or 5 people deep and not moving!  But today was all about the Vatican and Sistine Chapel.  The world’s smallest state, centre of Catholicism and home of the Pope!  Plus the thousands of other paintings, sculptures and artefacts in the Vatican museums. The Vatican has over 5 miles of corridors filled with the most wonderful, bizarre and interesting stuff.  I guess some well known stuff that we saw was the statue of Rodin’s ‘Thinker’, The ‘Discobolus’ Greek discus thrower and of course the Sistine Chapel.  Every corner, hallway, stairwell or hidden room was filled with some kind of art or treasure.  Taylor was finished in a couple of hours (just like the Louvre in Paris) but we spent 7 hours and even missed the Egyptian exhibition.  We have seen plenty of Egyptian stuff and the Tutankhamen exhibition, so didn’t mind skipping this.  Our feet were sore, Allan took a nap on a seat in the garden but we continued on ...  Our last stop of the day was the Pantheon which we missed on Monday.  The Pantheon is the most preserved Roman building in Rome.  It is a circular shape and has large granite pillars and a central opening (oculus) in the roof.  It is pretty amazing because the height of the oculus in 43.3m and the diameter of the interior circle is exactly the same.  After 2000 years it is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome.  Originally it was built for all of the gods of Rome and more recently been used by the Roman Catholic Church.