From the streets to the Vatican

I gave myself a day off to just have a walk about and pretty much just took pictures of street art. I started the morning slowly, just chilling out, doing some work, and enjoying not having anywhere in particular I needed to be. Once it got to I would like an espresso now o’clock.I put on my walking feet and headed out the door.

I really enjoyed just exploring the streets and seeing what I could find. This was definitely my biggest day of snapping pictures of graffiti in Rome. I did notice that I was getting more looks from people as I stopped to take pictures today then I have so much in other places. Maybe it’s because when they look and see that you aren’t taking a picture of something historic they are confused.

These definitely won’t exist for the same time as some of these other things that people visit Rome to see. I guess it’s part of why I like to document and capture the passing moments in time. The people that currently or recently exist. I have definitely started collecting photos of 1UP pieces now. I’ve even started playing the little game with myself to see how long can I be in city for before I spot a 1UP piece.

The next day I had an early start. I had booked in for a tour of the Vatican and we were meeting at 8:30am. As it was about an hours walk away I decided to catch my first Metro in Rome. Having used the Metro system in both Barcelona and Madrid I’m starting to feel a lot more confident with using the ticket machines ( I know there is an English language button on them now) and the lines are so clearly marked and colour coded it’s easy to figure out where to go. Between Google Maps directions and the layout of the system it’s logical and I like it.

I left with plenty of time, so stopped for an espresso at a cafe on my way to the tour meeting point. I booked the small group tour of Vatican Museum through AirBnb with the same crowd that organised the Colosseum tour from a few days ago. This time our host was Fabio and he was fantastic. (I know, you expected me to say fab… I really held back on it.) i think there was about 13 people in the group.

This was another tour where I was really glad that I had paid for someone else to navigate my entry, organise tickets, and all that jazz. Before even ‘starting the tour’ there are benefits to booking these experiences. Once we got our headsets our tour really began. Fabio was full of knowledge and provided us with so much information. He broke down and explained various elements using both visual aides and stories.

The art in the museum was impressive. It would be a challenge to come here and not be amazed. There must have been a bunch of people in Rome over the years who have got bad backs and sore necks from all the crazy ceiling painting. These things are so intricate and detailed that hours would have been spent in awkward positions. This ceiling painting business wasn’t just a Sistine Chapel thing.

Across the 2.5 hours of this tour so much information was given I’m impressed if I have managed to retain 5% of it. The tour ended before entering the Sistine Chapel so that we could have our own time to take it all in. Also you’re not meant to talk in there and not allowed to take pictures. A Japanese company that did restoration works inside still retain the copyright and this is why photos aren’t permitted. So I didn’t take any pictures. Apparently Kim Kardashian paid $2 (or was it $6 ) million Euros to take her photos of the ceiling. It’s one of those numbers, either way I wasn’t paying that for photos of the roof. Instead I just spent about 45 mins or so looking at it. See I remembered about 5% of that story.