Holy See aka: Santa Sede (Citta del Vaticano)

The Basillica is gorgeous, and the Sistine Chapel is nice, but kind of anticlimactic after being herded through hall after hall of art. I’d like to go back as an adult, and a Catholic, however.

Surprisingly a great collection of modern art in the Vatican museum.

We wandered to the Vatican City after waking up too late to go to the Colosseum early to beat the crowds, and there he was, Herr Ratzinger! He came in on the Pope Mobile, and gave his weekly speech. It was a really cool surprise!

I was thinking of opening a kiosk outside the Vatican to sell disposible pants for the tourists during summer. You cannot enter the Vatican in shorts or a tanktop reguardless of the outside tmeperature. If you travel to cathedrals in most of Europe they are the same way.

I don’t think I desecrated anything here…but it was definately hard not to. Avoid early morning long lines and visit the Pope’s Postal Service and his little postal subway.

The only country which has no women and children.

If you are going for a pilgramage… double think this, Vatican is a little crazy, there are mumified popes, people in trances kissing the feet of statues, breaking into to sobs… Make you wonder how so many catholics don’t know the truth about thier faiths…

Anyway, other then that, the museum is amazing, the piata is beautiful, but the sistine Chaple is let down, as it is a barn, and all of the buttreses and stuff are painted on the flat cieling…

But many of the marble statues are amazing

Despite its gargantuan garishness, it is still a sight to behold, and opulently beautiful

Seeing the Pope is moving even if you’re not Catholic (or even religious).

from really far away