Puglia and a bit of Rome. Part 10. Rome. Vatican. Sunday walk in Rome
To be continued. Start here >>>
The next day in Rome fell on the last Sunday of the month. We remembered that on this day you can visit the Vatican Museums for free and in the morning we went there by metro. It's good that on this night in Italy the time was shifted by an hour due to the transition to winter time. There was still an hour before the opening, but the queue grew by leaps and bounds, we got into it only after the second turn of the wall at the ticket office.
An hour and a half later we entered the museum.
We were in the Vatican three times with excursions, so we immediately went to where our tourists for some reason do not look - to the Vatican Pinakothek. There are few visitors there, although the collection of paintings is grandiose: Giotto, Raphael, Caravaggio, Leonardo, Titian, Veronese, Pinturicchio, Perugino, Lippi, Bellini, Vasari, Reni,
Poussin, Murillo, Ribera, Cranach the Elder, yes Forli, sculptures by Bernini.
Leonardo - "Saint Jerome"
Then we went through the always filled halls. . .
. . . to the Stanzas of Raphael, leisurely examined the frescoes of the great painter.
Here there are always crowds of people and sightseers.
We went downstairs and had a cursory look at the modern art gallery behind the Borgia apartments. There are a few works by Dali, but nothing special.
And of course the Sistine Chapel. Photography is still strictly prohibited (I still don't understand why),
and periodically, through a megaphone, a thunderous voice said: “Silence! » (silence). Photographed as a spy of some kind on the sly.
Along the snail staircase to the exit:
In the square in front of St. Peter's Cathedral, the pope was preparing a speech, so the square was cordoned off and the entrance to the cathedral was closed.
Past the Swiss Guards - into the city:
Our next visit there did not take place, I will tell you about the visits to the cathedral next time.
And this is our old photo from 2007, when Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the square.
For everyone, the square of St. Peter's Cathedral is good, with Bernini's colonnade, but one thing is bad - the dome is not visible because of the portico.
The cathedral looks best on Via della Conciliazione(Reconciliation). This street is one of the embodiments of Mussolini's project for the redevelopment of Rome. For the sake of this, many historical buildings were demolished, it was opened only in 1950.
Further along the familiar route to Castel Sant'Angelo:
The famous Bridge of the Holy Angel (Ponte Sant'Angelo) and statues of angels with symbols of the passion of Christ, created by various sculptors according to the design of Bernini. The angels are so skillfully deployed along their axis that they can be seen from all sides.
Crossing the Tiber,
We continued our Sunday walk around the city.
Continued here >>>
