Rome Day 3

Today I actually cried when we entered the Vatican Museum.  We hadn't seen anything yet, I just cried because I was there and I had been hoping to be there my whole life.  I think Ed was a little surprised when he realized I was crying while we were walking up the stairs!  hahaha  Who does that anyway?  Well...I just knew what I was going to see and it made me happy.  

The fear we had about waiting in line for 2 hours did not materialize for us.  The line was long but it moved very quickly and it was organized well.  My problem was that there was so much to see and I have an untrained mind so I was overwhelmed very quickly. What can be said about the Sistine Chapel except to simply sigh.  I was happy that the museum people kept telling everyone to be silent.  It helped enhance the experience.  After about 4 hours we left the museum and walked over to the Square.  The security line for the basilica was so long we decided to come early tomorrow so I can experience the Pieta.

We took a cab to the St. Peter In Chains Church to view the Moses by Michelangelo and then started walking to another church and the hotel but I got a blister on my foot so that was it for me.  Tomorrow I know we will be walking a bunch with Ed's sister and her husband joining us for the rest of our trip so I think it was a good day.  Ed is sleeping again so I think he was tired also.  There is so much to do here!! 

Pictures below show a bit of what we saw and liked today.

At the end of the day Ed brought me this flower.  It is a beautiful long stemmed rose with a glorious smell.  What a guy! My dream of seeing the Sistine Chapel before I die came true today AND I got a long stemmed red rose!

These are details from the mosaic floor from the Baths of Otricoli in Umbria which are now in the Vatican Museum.  I thought our girls would like the dragon.  It is huge and made up of tiles that are no larger than 3/8 inch in size.  Very impressive

These tablet from ancient Syria were interesting to me.  This one is sheathed in a wooden cover that is also written on.  There were examples of many sizes of records that were kept in ancient times.  Someone's journal or an account of the household purchases; which do you think?

The tapestry rooms/halls were so large and so detailed we wondered how many years it would take to complete.  Someone's entire life work would be only a part of one of these immense works of art. I took a picture of part of this scene depicting the conversion of Cornelius.

We went up and down so many stairs but this last one was so fun I wondered about it so I looking it up in one of the books I have at the hotel.  It seems that the long hallways were built to join the residence with an escape route in the event of an attempted siege.  This staircase was built so horses could come into the residence to bring help in removing the Pope to safety quickly.