I thought Florence had a lot of churches, Rome has over 950 of them!!
We actually went on a full day tour of the Vatican and it's 4 Papal basilicas. It was a great tour and it didn't seem like it took all day either.
We started at the Vatican Museum, which happens to be the 2nd most visited museum in the world, after the Louvre in Paris.
We're overlooking the gardens and St. Peter's is in the background too.
I know there's a reason for the giant bronze pinecone and peacocks, but I can't remember it.
I was really impressed with most of the artwork throughout Italy. In this picture, I thought it was amazing that the whole wall surrounding the archway is painted. It looks like it's woodwork, but it is all done with paint and they just made it look really, really cool. I wanted to reach up and touch it to make sure, but I wasn't tall enough.
Seriously, art is just everywhere--the ceilings, the walls, the floor! It's incredible!
This is Raphael's School of Athens painting inside the vatican museum.
Inside of St. Peter's Basilica. It is enormous and immaculate! St. Peter's is actually the largest church in the world.
The statue that made Michelangelo famous, The Pieta
It's behind bulletproof glass because several years ago, a crazy guy ran up to it and started attacking it and hammering it apart. What a freak!
The bronze that is used for this altar (I think that's what it's called) was originally part of the Pantheon, but was stolen and "recycled" to be used to make this. It is gorgeous though and who knows if that's true anyways, right!?
Supposedly, St. Peter is buried here.
Out in St. Peter's Square, there are 2 ceramic tiles on each side of the obelisk that if you stand on them, all the pillars (there are 4 in each row) line up
perfectly. It's a pretty cool trick.
St. Peter's Square.
The next Papal Basilica was St. Paul's. Here's St. Paul.
Each of the basilica's have special doors that only get opened every 25 years. If you go through each of the 4 doors on a Jubilee year, all your sins are pardoned or erased or something. Since this year isn't a Jubilee year (the next one is 2025, I think) you can still go to each of the 4 doors and touch them for a special blessing, but you still have all your sins. Dang, I was really counting on being purified! This door (there is a name for them, but I totally don't remember what it is), was one of my favorites.
I liked that it had the names on it.
This basilica has a place for every pope to be painted in. They say that once all the circles are filled with popes, that's when the world will end. Luckily, this church burned down at one point, so when they rebuilt it, they added a lot more circles.
This ceiling is just amazing! (I say that a lot, but all this stuff is so... AMAZING!)
This is inside a part of St. Paul's.
Next we went to see St. John's.
Here's the special door at St. John's (I want to say it's called a Jubilee door because that's the year it opens, but I could be wrong, it might just be called a holy door) You can see on the foot where everyone has touched it.
Inside St. John's
Same cathedral...
We went to see the steps that were apparently imported from Jerusalem and Christ walked up them carrying the cross or something (I don't know how you import a staircase). The steps are part of the pilgrimage that people make when they come to the vatican- they're suppsed to go to all the basilicas on their knees and then climb up these sacred steps on their knees and say 3 prayers on each step. I'm not sure what kind of blessing or whatever they get if they do this, hopefully something really good!
The last place we went was to Santa Maria Maggiore.
The altar inside.
Remember that cool artist that I talked about a lot in my Angels and Demons post? Well, his name's Bernini in case you forgot, and he's buried inside this church.
Now is probably the dumbest time in my life to start running, but it's too late now- I'm committed! Luckily, they're both just 5k's and I think (hope) I'll be okay without having to do too much running beforehand.
