The Maurin Family Madness: More Rome

Today we visited the Vatican museum. It was beautiful, and we saw some of the greatest works of art. We saw so many different things in the Vatican Museum, there were exhibits on display from all over the world including some miniature boats from many cultures including Australian Aboriginals.

There were of course lots of sculptures from all over but mostly form Italy.
There was also a lot of cool Egyptian items on display (which we knew Talon would love)


A mummy with all its body part jars!

Yep that is a real mummified person. He was gnarly!!

We saw a room filled with animals and another filled with busts. Mike's favorite was a sculpture called Laocoon the artist who created it is unknown. It is a sculpture of a man (Laocoon) and his two sons as two snakes try to kill them.

We went into the Sistine chapel. It was beautiful. The combination of Roman mythology and Christian imagery is really interesting. Michelangelo chose to paint Jupiter and Juno side by side with Adam and Eve. His paintings really cannot be compared with anyone else's. It was magnificent.

We were told not to take photos but everyone seemed to be ignoring that rule and taking photos all in plane sight, so I started to sneak a few. Just when I started Mike tapped my shoulder and told me to put the camera away. A guard came up right next to me and started yelling at a group of kids who were taking pictures. They had a woman with them who might have been a school teacher or tour guide and he threatened to kick them all out of the museum if they took any more. Exciting.
We waited until he was gone then we took some more.

With the current Pope about to retire this is the room where the cardinals will hold their secret conclave to choose a new pope. It was pretty cool.
There were hallways so long you could not see the end and every inch of the hallway was covered with paintings, even the ceilings!

After we had seen everything (and by everything I mean a little bit, but all we thought we could remember) we left and went over to St Peter's Basilica.
ST Peters is the main square of Vatican city. It is pretty huge. Not as big inside as the Duomo in Milan, (but I might just be scarred for life by the sheer size of that church and not remember clearly) The craftsmanship inside is amazing, everything is a work of art. If they had drinking fountains they would be "Drinking Fountains by Bernini" and they would be priceless.

Mike had told me about the three colors of marble intertwined in this holy water basin for years. It did not disappoint.

Even the drain covers are awesome!


These marble statues were outstanding to look at. its hard to believe they were all made so long ago!

outside the Basilica

The Basilica

The construction of these buildings is breathtaking. I wish things were built to look beautiful now.

This is one of the confessional booths in the Basilica. I took a random of it because when Mike and his friend Jared visited 15 years ago, they were allowed to get close to them. We have a picture of Jared sitting in this one. But it was all roped off.

Swiss guards outside the Vatican.

After the Vatican Museum and the Basilica we just started walking to see where we would end up. There is so much to see in Rome, in every direction. So we just let the wind take us! :)
We ended up at one of the parts of town with Old Rome pieces. Probably one of my favorite places to visit. Who knows how many hundreds of years these have been sitting there. We were enjoying our stroll around the relics and came across a small tour group (about 4 people). The tour guide was telling them a story about how the Jewish synagogue came to be in Rome. It was very interesting, so I stood and listened, while I pretended to take more pictures. Apparently the man that built it, I can't remember his name, but he was someone with a lot of power. He was in some kind of conflict with the Pope. He was excommunicated from the church and in retaliation he gave religious freedom to the Jewish and built the square domed synagogue to annoy the Pope. There was a rule at the time, that all dome were supposed to be round. He also built it on a slight hill which made it look taller than the Basilica, this was also to annoy the Pope. While it cannot be checked it is also supposed the be clearly visible from the Popes bedroom window!

The three columns of an old building. Very cool to look at. The square dome is in the background

This is an old arena

Foundations from old buildings

Marble artifacts. I wanted to put one in my bag to bring home!

One of the columns of the arena

Il Vittoriano

We left the Il Vittoriano and the Old Rome part of town and headed to San Pietro in Vincoli to see another of Mike's favorite statues, Moses by Michelangelo. You can read about it here. Next we went to see the Colosseum. Unfortunately it was closed for the evening. So instead of going home, we hung around and enjoyed the atmosphere of Rome in the evening and took some cool pictures of Rome at night!

Inside the church San Pietro in Vincoli (St Peter in Chains)

This is a sculpture of Death. It was big and a little intimidating.

This is the church from outside.

Moses. It was amazing

Selfie with Moses

The full statue

These are the chains that bound St Peter.

Wall art!

Colosseum right after it closed!

hopscotching along the giant cobble stones

The arch of Constantine next to the Colosseum.

There were many different kinds of cobble stones in Rome!


Across from the Colosseum there is a huge garden full of pieces of old Rome. We walked up the path alongside of it and came upon a little tiny church. This was the confessional in the church. Notice that there are no doors on it, so the whole congregation can watch you confess!