Europe Trip Day 7: Rome + Vatican City Part 1~

Suddenly feel like recycling one of my drafts from long long ago.. Back to the 7th day of my 14D13N Europe trip.. whee~ The day where i took the most pics i think, cos so many interesting buildings and things were stuffed into that one city, including one of the seven wonders of the world :)

Saw this ad that would never be approved in Malaysia eventho its actually quite mild for western standards~

Love the tree in this pic :)

You just cant help gushing when you see architecture like this!

The streets in Rome are all pretty narrow and many are not accessible by cars/ buses etc cos the whole city was planned a very very long time ago during the 'tamadun rom' era... :) and since our bus couldnt go far into town, we were dropped off and spent the whole day walking round all the tourist spots.. yay!

First stop was Vatican City, a city which is a mere 0.2 square miles in size~ and most people probably know what its famous for, especially since Dan Brown wrote the book Angels and Demons.. hehehe

St Peter's Basilica~
The biggest christian church in the world located in the world's smallest country.. @.@~

Our tour of the Vatican began here, the barriers are the boundary between the city of Rome and Vatican City, so you'll be standing in two dif

My interpretation of the sign: You can bring water bottles and umbrellas to protect yrself but no scary looking weapons allowed.. :P

A zoomed shot of the dome...

The whole length of the roof is covered with intricate sculptures like these :)

more proof that what i said abt the roof is true :P:P

have to queue and queue before can enter..

have to pass through metal detectors as well~

and after that, we are in! Mostly pics of the walls and floors, dont complain, cos very hard to find flattering pics of me during the europe trip, eating-sitting-sleeping repeatedly the whole day is a money back guarantee way to gain weight.. muahahaha..

One of the Swiss Guards in his funny uniform as described in Angels & Demons :):)

Ceiling~

more ceiling~

Some more ceiling~~

Walls~

Floor~

another wall~

Getting bored yet?? hehehe... met up with some very familiar ppl and grabbed them to take pics with us, hehehhehe...

Liverpool Gang!

Jason Lim the guitar teacher~ :)

found an ok pic of me!

Saw a very secret looking room where only a few ppl were allowed in at a time and no cameras were allowed, being the super curious and kaypoh person that i am, of course i had to squeeze in, turned out that the whole room (it was a small chapel) was gold and very very quiet.. kind of like a place to find peace and serenity...

sneaked a pic through the thick curtains.. After googling Cappella Del Sacramento, found out its actually not gold but bronze.. and works of the famous artist Bernini can be found inside...
A picture of the actual altar i found online~

also saw this very intricate hole on the floor.. and i was wondering what it was for... after visiting the underground crypts, realised that this is actually a ventilation system for the basilica's 'basement' hehehe...

After touring the inside, we continued to explore outside~

Mosaic murals on the walls on the way to the underground crypts...

No pics were allowed to be taken in the crypt.. but basically there were many tombstones like the pic below which i managed to smuggle out :)

After leaving the gloomy and depressing underground crypts, we emerged once more into the sunshine~ :)

Tadaa.. nippon paint advert :):)

Spotted 2 swiss guards. but nobody dared to go up to them to take a photo with them... :S

a cross-section of St Peter's Piazza (Square)~

one of the two matching fountains in the Piazza~

Kammy and me in front of Maderno's façade~

wanna guess wat this queue is for?? :)

Long long queue to the toilets... which were quite sanitary :)

obvious who needs to go~ (hint: the grumpy looking ppl, hehe)

12 ppl! finally a complete class pic~

Girls only shot :) before we crossed over the border again to tour the city of Rome.. even more exciting!

There's a post office in the Vatican where you can buy special stamps and send postcards home.. arghhh.. missed out on it >.<

Never imagined that i would be able to step foot onto Vatican soil (extra holy), hehehe..

stay tuned for Part 2 of Day 7: Rome + Vatican City which i will talk abt when i have the time to compile my hundreds of pics :S