Well, too much to fit into one post anyway, so I’ve decided to divide it into 3 portions. Firstly St Peter’s Basilica.
We left our apartment early and went to the Vatican City via the underground Metro. We had a nice chat with a young American couple on the way, after we helped them get some tickets from the machine. They were going to the same place we were and meeting friends there.
On our way to the church, we had this young lady dressed in a bridal gown and a photographer pass us.
My first thought was that they were going to the church to get photos taken, but after seeing several “brides”, none with veils or bouquets, I decided it was obviously for religious reasons. Mike looked it up and discovered that recently married couples can meet the Pope at the Wednesday audience, and get their wedding blessed by him. So we presume that’s what that was about!
When we reached the basilica we queued along with everyone else.
Just as well we were dressed properly. 😉 When we actually got in half an hour later, we discovered we had got into something we hadn’t quite expected!
It was a Wednesday morning and there is an audience with the Pope at 10am every Wednesday. Who knew?!!!
This was only 8.30am and there was already people everywhere, still some free seats though! The Swiss Guard were out in force.
As were priests…
And a few nuns and monks.
At this point we decided we would leave and go through the Vatican Museum first, then return later to St Peter’s as the church was closed until 1pm. However, in the interests of dividing this day into three, I’ll now jump ahead 5 hours to when we returned to the basilica.
On the steps, about to enter at last:
Several groups of devotees had priority of entry.
Inside the church
Note the nun in white in the bottom right corner of this photo below for scale of how large this is:
This is looking into one of the side chapels:
Looking up,
looking down,
and around:
Looking toward the back:
From the steps outside looking down on the courtyard:
So there you go. We have been in the bowels of the citadel of the Pope and lived to tell the tale. It was both fascinating, and disturbing.
Truly amazing pictures. I’m glad you pointed out the nun, it does give some perspective on the height of the room.
Although outstanding, we know Heaven will be even greater.