Where does one start with The Vatican City. Just in this 0.44 sq km patch of land lies more art and history than what is contained in most other cities in the world. The Vatican City is the temporal seat of the Pope, head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and actually probably doesn’t need any introduction. It is the world’s smallest state with a population of only 900. Its visitors, on the other hand, no doubt number in the millions. If you ever visit the Vatican Euro is apparently the least circulated in the world and is therefore worth more than its face value so be on the look out for them!

Traditionally, one enters the Vatican through St. Peter’s Square (Piazza San Pietro) where before you will rise the façade of St. Peter’s Basilica. However, we joined our tour on the backside of the Vatican so managed to avoid most of the queues out the front. We opted for a tour because there was no way we were going to be able to make it through all the treasures of The Vatican on our own without getting bored!

The main reason people head to the Vatican is to check out the Vatican Museums and Saint Peter’s Basilica. The museums are regarded as one of the greatest art galleries in the world and, from what I read, could take days and days to explore every nook and cranny. The highlights, however, are the spiral staircase, the Raphael Rooms and, of course, the Sistine Chapel and its Michelangelo frescos.

It was an EXCELLENT decision to do the guided tour and our tour guide, from Eden Walks, was excellent. You could tell that he was very much into his history from the passion of his telling. In fact, he wanted to impart so much detail and knowledge to us that he spoke extremely fast to try and get across as much as possible. I was quite impressed that he also managed to deal with everyone’s special request – like Teesh wanting to get postcards posted from the official Vatican post office, and another girl wanting to head off on another separate private tour, and then eventually making sure we finished the tour in good time so that those who wanted to could climb up to the top of St Peter’s Basilica. He was also conscious of his voice and the positioning of our group so that we were never blocking off anyone else. In fact, he was so sensitive to the other tour guides that he kept asking us if he was as loud as them!

It was extremely fascinating to hear the history of Michaelangelo and Raphael and the competition between the two artists but also how they basically egged each other on I think. The meaning behind the various statues, frescos etc. were also quite fascinating and not definitely something I would have picked up walking around on our own. Time worth spent!

The Vatican during our visit, late on a Saturday afternoon, was ridiculously crowded but thanks to good timing we actually had most of the Raphael Rooms to ourselves. Not the Sistine Chapel though – that packed like I couldn’t believe but it was big enough that you could find your own space to soak up the atmosphere.

At the end of our tour we managed to get a sneak peak into Vatican Palace through the key hole! The Swiss Guards, in their bright colourful clothing (reminded me of jesters), were hard to miss stalking back and forth in front of his front door.

One of the best tips that someone gave me for exploring the history of Rome is to take a hand mirror with you. That way you don’t have to constantly have your head turned up to the ceiling. It was a good tip though its worth having a fairly sizable mirror to take it all in.

In the Sistine Chapel they say you’re not allowed to take photos because of the copyright that some Japanese TV company has over the room (money paid over to help with the upkeep and renovation. But in all honesty it depends on how the guards are feeling that day and with that many people in the room there is no way they are going to come over and stop you taking the pic.

After our tour we ran up to climb up to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica for sweeping views over Rome. The lines can get pretty long here but it was worth the wait to climb to the top. As you climb the steps get narrower and narrower with the dome coming in on both sides of you. Very strange feeling on the climb as you almost feel like you’re going to fall over from the weird angle.

Some more photos here.