Last night I've finally finished compiling 4 short video clips of the Vatican City. I didn't have too much time to take the videos, so sorry if it's a bit "dizzying" in some parts ha ha...this is also the first time I've ever compiled videos using youtube editor, so it's kinda interesting to try that out. I didn't write down too many notes 'coz I just want to show you how it's like over there. For further info you can read about the Vatican City here.
This second video clip was taken from inside the Colosseum.
The third one was taken from one of the corners of the Colosseum, where we could look outside of the Colosseum. The arch is called the Arch of Constantine and the hill is called Palatine Hill.
A day before leaving to Rome, I accidentally
found out while browsing online for "things to see in Rome" that these
days you can buy online tickets for tour groups in Rome from the
official Vatican Museums
site. This way you'll avoid having to queue for a long time outside the
area because they had provided a separate line for those who had online
booking vouchers. I had no idea what the tour group would be like, but I
chose a 3-hour tour that included going inside Vatican Museums, St.
Peter's Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel. The tickets cost €74 for the
both of us. After booking the tour online, I received the voucher and I
had to print it out and bring it with me.
A
day before the tour started, we went to visit the site because the
article online suggested that we drop off at Cipro metro station instead
of Ottaviano because the line in front of Cipro was normally shorter
than that in Ottaviano, so we went there to find out how long it'd take
for us to go there from the hotel (because our tour would start at
10.45). There weren't too many things to see around Cipro, so after
checking out the place and finding out where we should queue, we went to
Ottaviano to check out the place. There were so many stores around
Ottaviano and true enough, there was such a LOOOONNNGGG queue of people
there. I suppose it didn't help that the Vatican was closed for 2 days
on Easter holidays, so it was really the right choice to buy the tickets
online.
Anyway,
on the appointed day we arrived MUCH earlier and we tried to get
inside, but the guard who scanned the barcodes on our voucher told us to
go back and come back only 30 minutes before the appointed time. So we
sat on a bench outside a church because the shops nearby weren't open
yet and when they were open we just went to look around a bit and I
found a cheap T-shirt LOL!!!!!
Once
we got inside the place, we had to go through security screening and
then R2 decided to leave the backpack in the cloakroom and then we
queued in front of a line of separate booths to exchange our online
vouchers with the real tickets. We queued right away, BUT again we were
told to go back and only get back there 15 minutes before the appointed
time. GAAAAHHHH!!! I don't understand why they had to do it 'coz it just
doesn't make any sense (because we couldn't have gotten in without our
tour guide!). Anyway, we waited for about 10 minutes and finally we
could get our real tickets and we were told to go to a certain desk to
get our headphones and wait for our tour guide. We did that, but the
tour started rather late because some of the tour participants were a
bit late. So apparently there should be 30 of us in the group and we had
to wait until everybody was present.
There
were other groups of people with their own tour guides in the whole
place, so it was rather chaotic because there were so many people, so
the tour guide told us to stay close to her. She was holding a kind of
banner as a sign as you can see in this pic below:
Anyway,
we started the tour by standing in front of this screen that showed the
magnificent artworks in the Sistine Chapel. She explained the history a
little as well as interesting tidbits about the artworks (that some of
the faces were those of the popes during that time, etc.). Fascinating
stuff...She said she had to do it first because we wouldn't be allowed
to talk in the Sistine Chapel nor take any photos. Only after she had
finished the presentation (it took about 20 minutes or so) did we get
inside the museums (we had to scan our own tickets to the machine).
Again there were so many people around us with their own groups, so we
really just had to follow the tour guide.
I
was a bit disappointed in the fact that it was such a crowded place in
some parts that we didn't really have time to enjoy anything much. I
couldn't even listen to her explanations properly because I used the
time to take pictures and videos of the whole place. VERY overwhelming,
actually. SO many things to see...awesome paintings, statues, etc. Not
enough time to check everything out. We couldn't even stop by to admire
everything too much because of time limit and whenever I wanted to take a
pic of something, usually there were already a throng of people in the
way, so I had to focus on taking pics VERY quickly by trying to
bypass all those people while still focusing on making sure I knew where
my group was. There were lots of AMAZING ceilings that I just couldn't
capture properly in my photos or videos.
After
we finished looking around at the museums, we queued into the Sistine
Chapel and that was where the crazy crowd was (in some places it was HOT/stuffy
because of the crowd and the lack of ventilation - can't imagine how it'd be like at the height of summer!!!).
We moved very very slowly forward along the long, narrow corridors and
the Sistine Chapel was an awesome place, though again the problem was we
couldn't really enjoy it properly because it was so full, so mostly I
just looked at the ceiling (my neck was seriously sore from all the
lovely ceilings and taking pics and videos of them LOL!!!). Inside the
Sistine Chapel, the guards kept on yelling every now and then, "NO
PHOTOS!!!!!!!!!!! SILENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" over and over and over again
he he he he...
OK, I'm going to cut this here because otherwise it's going to be such a long post. Meanwhile, enjoy these photos:
