Rome {The Vatican}

Our second day in Rome was spent entirely at the Vatican. Including St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum - finishing in the Sistine Chapel. We started out with our handy Rick Steve's audio guides (I know, I know... you're tired of hearing about Rick. :) Haha!) and began the day soaking up the sites in St. Peter's Square.

St. Peter's Basilica is truly a work of art. One of the most amazing things about the Basilica is how enormous it is.. yet there is so, so much detail! For example, there are statues going up into the dome and as they go up, the statues are built larger so that they all appear to be the same size from the floor... make sense? Instead of appearing to be smaller and smaller because they're further away, they all appear to be the same size. Which is kind of deceiving because the basilica is huge, but the scale of the artwork doesn't make it feel as enormous as it actually is. And the mosaics are incredible. All the artwork on the walls (like St. Mark's Basilica in Venice) are made up of tiny chips that create the larger picture...  We climbed to the top of the dome and looked down into the basilica and out over Rome. The view of Rome was incredible, and looking down into the dome gave us a better perspective on exactly how huge St. Peter's is... (brace yourself for picture overload!)

Looking down through the cage at the top - WOW! Those words in navy blue are 7 feet tall. Perspective. 

Looking up into the dome from the floor.

Mosaic tile everywhere...

Literally climbing around the dome - almost to the top! 

Dad with Rome in the background! The view was incredible. 

A view of St. Peter's Square from above...

Wish I had gotten more pictures looking out over Rome with Hannah and Tonja... Hannah was a little intimidated by the height, so she stood back. :) Dad has some good shots, but then his memory card went bad and we lost them. Bummer!

Next up - the Vatican Museum... 

Love this picture... 

We had an awesome dinner after a long, hot, exhausting day! :)