Euro trip Day 2: Vatican museum, Sistine Chapel and Leaning tower of pisa

Hope the teaser did tease you a bit. You can click here to view the teaser :) Here I am with the second day at Italy and the fun filled day 2 of my Euro tour exploring Vatican museum, Sistine Chapel and Leaning tower of pisa.

All of us had started missing the Colosseum and Trevi fountain. And had to get up before the sun did. We woke up at around 6am, had the tasty and healthy continental food. Filled up the tummy with cake , fresh fruits , quick bread and freshly brewed coffee. Had to load up our luggage back into the bus before we left for Vatican city which was about a couple of hours from our hotel. Took a power nap, till we reached Vatican, the smallest country in the world.

When I opened my eyes, I was given a historic welcoming by the huge boundary walls and people queued up around the structure to enter the Vatican museum.


 Wondered if we too had to line up for the same. Our tour guides informed us that there were two ways to get in. Either stand in the queue(preferably for local public) or get a special tourist pass which of-course had a few more Euros added to it.  Ahh, I haven't yet introduced you all to my fellow travelers from India :) . We were a group of 29 people from India, which comprised families from Mumbai ,  Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore etc. It was a nice experience for me traveling on a bus tour with people from so many states :)

Back to Vatican city, we walked our way towards the entrance, where we again met Elysia who was to guide us through Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. We went inside with our entry coupons , and walked towards the museum where Elysia showed the paintings from Chapel through an online UI, since we were not allowed to take pics inside the Chapel.

After the brief introduction of all the paintings which had details of Adam, Eve , and the Last Supper, we took some snaps and entered the Vatican museum where we saw paintings of Gods, and also the paintings of maps of Italy etc. It is considered to be the first man made Google maps.

Art at its best. These were world class paintings and what a show of talent and brilliance. After witnessing the maps and paintings we entered The Sistine Chapel where as expected, we were told to maintain silence and not to take snaps. The silence was eternal and holy. I tried to match the wall paintings with those which Elysia had explained us about. I did managed to correlate some of them.

Amazing

Roofs painted as well. What a corridor view

We walked our way out with the group, I keep taking snaps with Dad when suddenly we realized that no one from our group was around and the group was out of sight. Luckily when we moved forward with the crowd, we bumped into another guy from our group. Helpless we started searching for our group inside the church, in and out of Vatican museum too.

We had the walky talkie which also didn't showed any signs of relief. After around 1hr of running all around Vatican museum, we decided to move out of the place to meet at the gathering point outside where our bus had dropped us. Though tensed, we did manage to take snaps while we walked briskly to find our way out.

Remember this view? Pope elections?

Vatican Museum

Lost in Vatican. But enjoying !!

Vatican and the rains :)

Dad a bit tensed.....but still who wants to miss this chance !!

We met a few Bengali umbrella sellers who did help us walk the way out. While searching our way out, we met some Italian policemen who started laughing at us and giggled saying " Lost in Roma .....haha. You lost in Rome? haha ". Just at that time, we got a call from our fellow travelers who were with my mom. Phew, we managed to meet our group finally !! trust me, its not good to be lost in Rome !!! :P   Luckily people understood English but that didn't stop us to be a laughing stock :D :D

After Enjoying this lost n found trip and the little hide n seek with our fellow passengers, we said our byes to Vatican and our guide Elysia to hit the road to Pisa where another wonder of the world Pisa awaited us. It was a 6hr bus trip to Pisa.

When we got down, everyone was too tired to even open their eyes but we had been given only some precious minutes with the world famous architectural beauty "The leaning tower of Pisa" . As we walked through the entrance we could see the 56 meter tall , Bell tower of Pisa. Called "Piazza dei Mira coli" in Italian, the view was amazing, like the ones we see on television :) Bonanno Pisano was the architect of this Roman architectural excellence.

There were only a few people around which gave us some more time to walk near the Leaning Tower. Its really a must watch. If you find time, you could sit on the lawns around the tower and feel the calmness and quietness.

As I write this, its about 12:50am here in Pisa @ Hotel Europa and I gotta wake up at 6am for my trip to Venice island and gondola ride tomorrow.

Hope you found Vatican city amazing and it proved to be a treat to the eyes. If yes please do put your valuable comments :)

"Avere una buona giornata"  "Have a good day"