THE VATICAN

The first day we were in Rome we visited the Vatican.  It is certainly the biggest church I've ever seen.  Here is a picture scanned from Eyewitness on Italy.  Note the red arrow.  It will be important later.   While you may think that these people are here to hear the Pope, you are wrong.   They are here for the annual pasta cook off.

My dad thinks that the shafts of sun light make this picture artistic.  The ceiling is gold leaf as are many of the walls.  Everything else is marble.  All different colors and shapes.  You wonder where they get it all from.   This is just a small part of the church.  Of note all the gold leaf is way up high, where you can't reach it or take just a little tiny souvenir.

This is portion of the church which would be the center of the cross.  The canopy was designed by Bernini in the 17th century.  It covers the Papal Alter.  In front of that is the grave of St. Peter who was buried here in 67 AD.   There is so much to look at that you don't know where to begin.  Notice the beautiful marble floor.  I'm in the blue jacket and my mom is in the reddish one to the right..

When you tour with dad, you're always posing somewhere.  "It gives proportion."

My mom and I are climbing to the top of the Cupola (435 feet).  It was about a million steps.   Mom only made it half way while my dad and I went all the way to the red arrow in the first pasta cook off picture..  The walls have the names of $50 and $100 donors.   Below is picture from the top.

Here is the view of Rome from the top of the Cupola (taken from the red arrow in the first picture).  Looks good enough to be a postcard (Yeah, dad).  We had a little difficulty when we discovered that you take a different stairway down than you use to go up.  You can guess where Mom was waiting...1/2 way up the UP stairway. 

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