April 29: Rome #1 - St Peter's Basillica and Vatican Museum

Day #6 of our Med cruise, 4th port stop: Civitavecchia is where we docked with options to go to Rome.

We started out our day catching the train from Civitavecchia at about 9 am, and up until the last second, I couldn't decide if we were going to skip our Scavi tour that was scheduled at 10 am, and go to the Vatican later in the day when it was supposed to be less crowded, or just chance it and go to the Vatican first. I kept going back and forth, Vatican first or Colosseum first. Since St. Peter's stop was first, we just decided then to just get off there and do the tour. We are glad we did, it ended up being very interesting

For our tour, we had to go to the Swiss guard around the side of St Peter's and show our tickets to be let through the special entrance into the back. It was nice going where not many others got to go.

Tyler outside the Scavi office waiting to go on our tour. They didn't allow any photos or video during it, which was a bummer, but with the sensitivity of the excavations, I could understand. There were about 4 - 5 other couples there. When we were done, we were let into the Grotto area where all of the Popes were buried, and we just went with the flow, exited out and went upstairs into St Peter's Basillica

Above: While on our Scavi tour, we would be down below and could see people up above in the Basillica through these vents. Every once in awhile someone would see us and would wave at us. It was fun!

We were super lucky with our timing and got right into the Vatican museum afterwards. Someone had said that we were really lucky because the line was really long throughout the day, but when we went, there was no one there and we walked right in! Sometimes during the summer it has been known to be several hours wait! Because of this reason, I was debating whether to even pre-purchase tickets to the museum since our day was already so short in Rome. It was a real gamble, but I am really glad we did!

Heading out and around to the Vatican Museum

Above: tapestry room

Above: The ceilings all throughout the museum were very beautiful

Sistine Chapel

This was an incredibly lucky happenstance. As we entered into the Sistine Chapel, we walked in and everyone was filming and taking pictures...even flash pictures!! I was shocked! They are usually SOO STRICT about no one taking any video or pictures, and those guards are on the look out and will stop you! But this time, there was no sign at the entrance like there was before, and everyone was going at it, and the guards didn't even care! I don't know if this was a new thing they allowed now because they were tired of stopping people, or if we were just there on a good day. But whatever the reason, I was like a kid in a candy shop. I finally could take pictures of the Sistine chapel of my own. I was really happy and considered myself very lucky.

Above: The Final Judgement