Full caps on THE in the title because we did it big. Tour of the Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica, Sistine Chapel, and the big surprise to me was Rafael’s hall of paintings.
Simply amazing and to be able to share the experience with two people we truly enjoy spending time with was a big bonus.
I was a bit awe struck so probably didn’t take as many photos as I should have. (if anyone is looking at this please feel free to click the photos to enlarge them and see if I captioned it, I did a few). As usual I have added links to some of the places for more information on them. More on the Sistine Chapel below the pics.
I’ve posted photos from outside the forum looking in previously but this time we walked inside. Pretty amazing stuff.
The first three photos below are inside The Colosseum then The Vatican grounds and entry, Rafael‘s Paintings (and his students’ work) and finally St. Peter’s Basilica:
Out of respect for the Catholic religion I did not take photos inside the Sistine Chapel, in this case Ya Gotta Go To Know. It was stunning and though I went in with ideas from people who had gone previously that they were disappointed by the small size of it I did not feel that way. This is a chapel not a cathedral. The art work was beyond words and only moments after we walked in a priest said a prayer which was just beautiful.
My only disappointment with the Sistine Chapel was with the people visiting it. The amount of chatter and lack of respect for where they were was rather disgusting. In my opinion, if you are interested enough to go tour something with as much history as this please do the homework and know it is a church and understand before walking in what is expected of you. Ignorance is no excuse, have some self respect.
All of that said, I am adding a link to a virtual tour which will show you the inside, click here, go in then when it’s loaded hold your mouse clicked and move it side to side and up and down to view the entire room. For the site with information click here.
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After the tour and taking our time in St. Peter’s we walked out to the courtyard area and a couple of young American almost priests were there to chat with people so of course we had a nice long conversation that was just lovely.
We also did an after dark tour of The Colosseum but the photos are pretty dark so I’ll let you imagine how that went. We were taken down into the structure, it was creepy and awesome.
Big thank you to our friends, Shirley and Willie, for coming to Italy to share some amazing adventures with us.
Life Notes 
Looks amazing!
Rome is worth the trip! Every time. 🙂
Amazing photos! Thanks for sharing your trip 🙂