We woke up early again and headed to Vatican City to visit the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica (this was also dedicated to Uncle Tim and we thought about him a few times during the day). As the final day of our 3 week trip, we thought it was be fitting to have a relaxing day in the sacred city. First on the agenda was the Vatican Museum.
Representative picture of the Vatican wall.
St. Peter's dome
We started our tour of the religious memorabilia by looking at some paintings. The was about 10 or so rooms filled with gorgeous art; most of which arose during the Renaissance era. One of the famous ones was Rafael’s last painting. We’ll get to more of him later. 
A practice sketch next to the final project to see the progression.
More amazing pieces of art.
Here is model of a statue using metal bars, sticks, and dried mud to practice on before sculpting the real thing.
Next we strolled down sculpture row. There was a couple rooms and courtyards dedicated to the topic.
We continued our journey through a few long hallways. One displayed old maps (can kind of see the maps - but the ceiling was impressive too).
After more rooms we arrived at one of the highlights of the museum, Raphel’s rooms.FYI, Raphel was a stud – the Magic Johnson of his time (haha). His gift was discovered at a young age. At age 20 he was one of the top painters in the land. It was at this time that he was given 3 rooms to completely paint. This rooms held special importance with the Pope and the clergy.
When we arrived to the rooms, we were amazed. There were 3 rooms entirely covered with a colorful fresco. Each painting was a story or a unique scene that had a large meaning behind it. Fortunately for us, we were able to share a audio guide and learned the meanings behind the paintings. Quite special. He had a very imaginative mind at such a young age. However, this playboy died at a young age due to a STD. Guess he couldn’t contain the popularity. It’s a shame.
Raphel's room.
After Raphel’s rooms we finished with the “greatest painting of all time.” Everyone goes to the Vatican Museum just to see this part. It is the room that everyone knows. Its Michelangelos 4 year project. It houses the Pope’s election. It’s something that could be stared at for hours. Could it live up to its hype? Yes it did! What is it? It is one and only, the infamous, the never surpassed, the magnificent Sistine Chapel. When we entered the Sistine Chapel we were blown away. The colored frescos filled the walls and ceiling. It was similar to the other great ceiling paintings (Duomo in Florence, Raphel’s rooms, and the numerous others), but now on a much greater scale. There was a few extremely famous sections that we felt honored to see. The room was broken down into 3 main parts.
1) The Last Judgment on the front wall.
2) Man’s salvation depicted on the ceiling.
3) Jesus compared to Moses on the side walls.`
The Last Judgement shows Jesus’s glorious resurrections and conquering hell. The painting is done in great detail. The bottom of the wall is covered with Hellish characters and angels fighting each other. Up the wall, were more angels and famous religious leaders (Peter, Paul, Mary, etc). Further up the wall is all the angels in heaven. It’s a amazingly graphical piece. It is legendary because of its location (Vatican), its size, detail, imagery, human body characteristics, and overall colorfulness. It was a beautiful sight.The ceiling was just as impressive. There were 9 main paintings, in 3 sets of 3. First 3 were the creation of the sun, earth, and stars (?). The next three were the creation of man and the original sin. The creation of man (Adam and God’s fingers nearly touching), is probably most famous of the entire room. The last 3 dealt with man overcoming sin and finding salvation. We were amazed at all of it. The creation painting was neat to see in person. Because of its hype, we thought it would take up a larger part of the room. Nevertheless, it was still astonishing.
Lastly, along the sides of the wall were 5 pictures of Jesus on one side and 5 pictures of Moses on the other. Each painting dealt with an important moment in their respected lives.
We spent an hour in the tourist filled room. There was constant yelling of the guards to be silent and stop taking photos. We wished we could have experienced the Chapel alone and with music on. When your cramped in the room like sardines, you tend to lose the connection. St. Peters Basilica was also filled with tourists and it was our next stop.
Cute picture of the old Pope John Paul II - a great man. His looks very young there. From the picture, you could imagine what he would look like as a child. 
Since we had heard numerous great things about St Peters Basilica, we wanted to make a proper entrance into the church. Therefore, we held hands, lowered our heads, and walked through the doors. Once inside we walked to the center of the main aisle with our head still down. We took a deep breath and counted to 3. Then we both looked up and gazed upon the immaculate sight. Chills ran down our spines and goose bumps crawled down our arm. It was another "WoW" moment for us. Being the largest church in the world, its monstrosity along blew us away. However, the best parts were the structure in the center of the church and the artful masterpiece laying beyond the alter. The pictures can show you what they were better than a description. Both were deep dark brown bronze with gold accents. A rich combo that we haven’t seen before. We immediately felt privileged to be standing where we were.
Along the sides of the church were numerous memorials to previous popes/saints.
Probably the most famous side piece was the original Pieta. Its Mary holding dead Jesus.
Under the main alter is St. Peter's remains. They were already there when they built the church. So in essence, they built the church on top of his grave. 
We toured the church until mass. Since it was a Saturday and we would be traveling all day on Sunday, we thought it would be a great idea to attend their Latin service at 5 o’clock. Glad we looked into this, because it was easily the highlight of the day. It carried so much soothing powers and completed our trip in an almost perfect way. Sitting in the 2nd row, we were able to simply admire the masterpiece behind the alter. It is hands down the best. Interestingly, the design reminded us of LOST (most things do). It appears to be gold smoke building up from the base behind St. Peter’s Chair. If Jacob was gold smoke on LOST, that would have been sooo cool. Anyways, back to the mass. The service was in Latin, which was different, but a good experience. Thankfully, the priest took 4-5 mins at the end of his homily to summarize the 1st, 2nd, and gospel readings or we would have been lost. Overall, great great Great experience and by far the most relaxing part of the trip. It completed our trip entirely.
After mass, with the lights still on.
Outside after mass.
View of Vatican city. That's pretty much it.
After St Peters, we went to a suburbs of Rome that is known for having great food, Traverse. After roaming around the streets for a bit, we found a good Pizzeria to sit down at. Yes, our 2nd prepared meal for us. Just like everything over seas, it was a small portion for a lot of money, but it was Italian pizza and it was very tasty.
With that we got a bus to the subway and got our bags from the storage area. Next we caught a train to the airport. There is a direct express shuttle from downtown to the airport for 14 euros ($21) and that is what everyone uses. But we were able to find local train outside the city that had a stop at the airport. So we made our way to that train and got to the airport for 1 euro. We sacrificed time, but at this point, we didn’t have much money and we had plenty of time to give. We arrived at the airport at 11 pm and found a nice floor to rest before our 8 am flight (trains from downtown Rome don’t leave until 6 and we wouldn’t have enough time to check in). After getting an hour or 2 of sleep we caught a plane to Madrid, then to NYC, then home to Columbus. A very long travel day, we made it safely home. At the end, we only had 0.20 euros left over. Now that’s great budgeting!
It was a trip of a life time and shared priceless experiences along the way. With the help of parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, good friends, and bosses, we were able to make the trip. Thanks to everyone for following the blog. Can’t wait to talk about it in person.
