The Vatican

May 17, 2013 19:30

Before we got to Rome, we purchased night tickets for the Vatican Museum. We got over to the Vatican around 7:30pm in time for our 8pm appointment. I was expecting at least some sort of security check upon entering into the city state, but there wasn't anything at all.

We had to weight fifteen or twenty minutes, but overall, it wasn't too bad at all. It was definitely worth pre-ordering the ticket which allowed us to skip the line. The museum was absolutely incredible. I'm convinced that I could spend weeks in there and still not even come close to seeing everything.

And of course the museum ended in the Sistine Chapel. There's really not much I can say about it – the experience left me completely speechless. Of course you couldn't take pictures, and they tried to keep everyone pretty quiet. There was some faint choral ensemble music playing in the background that added to the sacred space.

It's crazy to think that just a few weeks prior, cardinals from all over the world were meeting in that very space to select the new pope.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay in the Vatican Museum all night, but on our way back to the city center of Rome, we witnessed the halfway point of the historic Mille Miglia 2013, an annual car race that reenacts the open-road endurance race that took place from the 1920s to the 1950s. The 375 vehicles started travel through nearly the entire country from Brescia to Rome and back again.