Today was the least amount of people visiting that Ken had seen in 3 years - lucky us.
Really! We started at the Vatican Museum where endless collections of sculptures and paintings and tapestries and japanese tour groups filled the numerous galleries.
Here is the maproom gallery - where each part of Italy has its own map and individual dipictions relating to that region on the walls and ceiling around it.
There was even a painting of a workplace accident where a marble column had dropped on a worker, and there was 4 guys standing around watching.
Onto the Raphael Rooms where he was hired by Pope Julius II to decorate his apartments, sparing no expence. This masterpiece is called School of Athens and contains some of the most important thinkers of the day such as Michelangelo, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and of course his girlfriend, carefully disguised (?) as Hypatia. We then visited the Sistine Chapel - where we discover that Michelangelo has quite a sense of humor - some directed at the church - cheeky boy!
At last we visit St Peter's basilica which took over 120 years to build and at least that long to describe. Amazing, huge, ornate, really really neato - and filled with dead Popes - some of which you can still see.
Here is the famous sculpture Pieta by Michelangelo carved in 1499 at the age of 25. It is done from 1 piece of marble, something not done on this scale before. We know the secret of how he did it! Ha ha - you have to come here to find out yourself.
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