we listened to our friendly hostel staff and woke up bright and early to avoid the crowds at the vatican.. so despite missing our bus stop, we still made it to the vatican with a relatively short queue in front of us.
once you step into vatican city, the basillica greets you in its wide expanse, with a tall obelisk marking its centre and columns topped with statues encircling it. st peter's square is HUGE man! many many chairs there for mass held on sunday. vatican is so small (for a COUNTRY) that once u exit the square, you're in rome again! it just consists of the sistine chapel, the museums and st peter's square.
and we checked out the swiss guards there as well. haha, the one in my pic is quite shuai! anw their uniforms are atrocious la. can u imagine some guy sneaking into the museums to steal artwork and the swiss guards try to creep up on him to catch him in that conspicuous attire? the thief can spot them from a MILE away!!!
so anw, cute swiss guards aside, we got thru the security check and entered the church. it's sooo beautiful. u really have to take your time and walk along the aisles and check out all the intricacies of each chapel, michelangelo's pieta sculpture of Mary and Jesus, all the popes and their sculptures. There was a small mass going on when we went in and listening to them singing the hymns on such sacred ground just gave me goosebumps.
after letting ivina taking videos of the church and basilica until her memory card ran outta space, we split up to go to the sistine chapel, while the lovebir.. *cough* i mean, jinteng n mingrui went to castle sant angelo.
so we walked past the queue that had gathered to get into the church and laughed coz they werent early like us, nehnehnehnehnehneh (ok la it was probably just me who did that)! got out of st peter's square and back to rome where the queue for the sistine chaptel began. so we started queuing abt about 9am..
and queued.. rounded one corner, no entrance in sight..
queued some more.. rounded another corner.. still no entrance..
passed by this elderly lady who was begging for money. one side of her head was red and raw as though the skin n hair had come off.. hope someone got her to a doctor or sth. her money bowl was quite full, coz many of us were rather shocked by the sight of her scalp.
so anyways, we rounded at least 3 corners, queued for about 1.5 hours and saw countless signs pointing us to the direction of the sistine chapel, until we reached the entrance. got our student priced tickets to the vatician museums and followed MORE signs guiding us to the sistine chapel. i really felt like the sistine chapel was some sort of myth that people came up with and that it didnt actually exist coz we had to travel so far!!! like journey to the west.
we crossed rooms after rooms dedicated to various artists - raphael's room, etc etc - galleries after galleries of modern art and sculptures, occassionally eavesdropping on some tour guides talking about the history of a certain work. it's REALLY alot of rooms ok. sistine chapel became 传说中的 sistine chapel haha.
FINALLY arrived at the chapel. we werent allowed to take pics in there, although pple around us were trying their best to snatch a snap despite getting reprimanded by the security personnel there. haha. every 3 seconds, when the volume in the chapel began to rise, the security would shout 'quiet please!' and silence would befall the place. so in e end still quite noisy.
the last judgement was really amazing.. esp when u considered the fact that michelangelo painted the ceiling and all the murals on standing upright. imagine the stress on his neck when he painted the ceiling!
so rushing off from the vatican after spending an insufficient halfday there, we got on board a eurostar train (the first use of our eurail pass!) to venice. arrived about 7 plus and began our search for a hostel. the hostels in venice are usually more expensive coz it's such a touristy place.. but eventually we managed to get a one-star hotel, cheaper than our hostel-of-choice.
check out how the one-star hotel looked like (there's even the helpful ONE star on the signboard). haha.. we didnt actually stay here.. we stayed opp it, at its one-star sister hotel or something, but e hotel recep was here.
so we set off next morning after quite a nice stay in e first hotel room of our trip - e guys' room even had a tv! - to explore the calles and fondamentas of venice. it's really a city to get lost in.. and then take ur map and figure your way out. haha. managed to meander our way to piazza san marco, where it was a nice and wide expanse of space, a breather from the small alleys we made our way there from. there were more pigeons than people there i think.. and some young punks tried running towards the pigeons, making them all take flight and putting us in fear of pigeon droppings for a while, until they all settled down again.
it was very leisurely walking ard venice in the nice cool weather.. saw the gondoliers in their stripey tops and by their gondolas (too ex for us paupers), the ponte rialto, the grand canal, all the traghetti (small sampan-like boats) and jam-packed ferries bringing people around venice on its waterways.
venice also has ALOT ALOT of masks which were sold practically in every other shop.. the big ones are really intricate in detail and pretty! and they cost a bomb too. haha. too bad gerald didnt manage to find his teardrop one.
so after 2 free breakfasts at the cafe near the hostel, we left venice on the morning of the 19th on another regionale train to milan. after having quite a bit of luck in finding last-minute-vacant hostels, milan proved to be insurmountable. we checked with the very very helpful tourist information uncle and found out that due to this furniture trade fair thing in milan which has attracted like every businessman in europe, hotels AND hostels were full for the week. SIAN. byebye milanese duomo and ermm.. shopping haha.
so this is all we have to show for milan, the train station. haha. hurriedly made plans to leave italy for zurich, switzerland next. up north we go!
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