Euro Trip - Part 2

Day 2 :
After a 2.5 hour wait in the queue we finally entered Vatican city along with a local guide we had been had provided with .. Received these cool audio receivers with headphones .. Sort of like a radio with a few frequencies .. the guide has a mic with a transmitter attached and these signals are picked up by whatever receivers are tuned to that frequency within a few yards ... really useful for hearing what the guide is saying in crowded places

Vatican city as many people know is the smallest country in the world and is enclosed within Rome with huge walls covered with cctvs separating it from the city

Once inside went through the Vatican museum whose walls and ceilings were covered with tapestries and painting and before entering Sistine chapel the guide stopped at one of the many illustrations put up outside the chapel about the works of art inside and explained it to us as it would be too crowded inside to appreciate it

The ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel were done by Michelangelo who had not painted anything previous to this assignment .. It took him 2.5 years to do the ceiling alone and most of it was spent atop scaffolding erected by him to reach that height



The fresco behind the altar is The Last Judgement where u can see Jesus in the middle calling all the people unto him .. Above him is heaven where all is peaceful whereas below is Hell where the unworthy fall . The first image at the bottom is Christ , in the second the skin of the person being peeled has a face .. this was Michelangelo's own face .. The third picture shows the various saints who were crucified and the fourth shows the guardian of the underworld with a snake around him and biting his u-know-what ... Some critic had apparently criticized Michelangelo's work and to pay him back Michelangelo drew him as the guardian of the underworld




The ceiling has the fresco of genesis showing the creation of light and dark , of man , woman , of their banishment from paradise , of the floods and Noah etc from bottom to top . Michelangelo was a great believer of beauty being the means to reach god.. His paintings were also full of symbolism's .. On the top right corner of the painting u can see the stage of evolution where god is creating man and giving him wisdom .... If u look closely u can see that the shape behind god is that of a brain .

After this explanation we headed into the chapel to see the real thing and then proceeded to St Peter's Basilica





Saw the pieta sculpture again by Michelangelo which is carved so beautifully u can almost see the delicateness of it all



Went through St peters basilica and exited onto Vatican Square .. The pope had asked Bernini to design this to hold as many people as possible and it is Huge and a place that many would recognize from the numerous TV shots



After leaving Vatican city went to see the Colosseum ... A massive structure , it is truly breathtaking and it is quite amazing that it has stood for so long . At its zenith it was used to hold various activities like gladiator fights for which the whole population turned out . It could seat 55,000 people and the acoustics were so good that the king could speak and the entire audience could hear it without any microphone being used




The floor ( the red railing indicating floor level as it would have been ) of it has long been destroyed and u can see the tunnels and passages that used to snake underneath the arena ... These were used to transport the gladiators , to move the animals etc .

The king and the nobles used to sit in the lower rows , rich people in the next tier , middle class in the next and so on .. The uppermost tier was reserved for women and slaves .

Today , many holes are visible in the walls . Apparently the stones were held together and reinforced by metal joints made of copper , bronze etc .. Many years after the Colosseum ceased to be used for activities , some plunderers removed the metal , melted it down and sold them to make money

Got into the bus and left for the Euro hotel that evening .

PS : Saw the Colosseum before it was voted as one of the new 7 wonders :-/

Day 3 :

Checked out of the hotel in the morning and left for Pisa . i had always thought that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was a stand ( barely standing ) alone thing but it was apparently in this place called the Square of Miracles which also had a cathedral and a baptistery right next to it




Entrance to the Square is free but to go into the cathedral , the baptistery , the crypt or to go up the tower is charged ... Kd buggers ..

Parents bought a ticket to go see cathedral and baptistery and sis and me got ticket to go up the tower for 11 euros .. To kill time until our scheduled time of ascent we walked around and took photographs



Lotsa Ppl around were takin trick photographs like pulling or pushin the tower causing it to lean ... like so




Finally the scheduled time came and we started the ascent up the tower by means of stairs inside the tower .. As u climb up u can really feel the slant .. The angle of tilt is approximately 5 degrees .. There are 3 observation levels along the way from where u get a nice view of the surrounding areas .. Finally u get to the bell tower level .. The leaning tower of Pisa was intended to be a bell tower when it was constructed and was supposed to be 3 times its current height .. But when it started leaning they stopped at that height .. it was closed to tourists for some time ( Poor Bow :P ) but they have poured lots of concrete and made the foundation strong now .. The top layer has a circular walkway and as u walk around it the slant is obvious .. Great view from here too


Came down, went back to the bus and drove to Florence ..Its Italian name is Firenze . Florence was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and the heart of the Italian art scene .. From here great artists originated like Michelangelo , Leonardo da Vinci etc .. At its zenith Florence was a great centre for trade , art , finance etc .

We first went to the Michelangelo Plaza from where u can get a bird's eye view of the city of Florence .. Also on this plaza is a replica of the famous statue of David done by Michelangelo .




After this we headed for lunch .. Thomas Cook had this arrangement that in each country we would get one local meal to get the flavour of that country .. so the local meal was provided on this day .. Soup , Chicken , Salad and pasta

After Lunch we continued our tour of Florence on foot as everything worth seeing was close to each other .. We were also provided a local guide for this .. We first proceeded to the Cathedral .. The one here is the 4th largest in the world and is famous for his huge dome and is called
' Duomo ' .. After goin in and coming out of the cathedral we proceed to the baptistery .. These doors were made in the Italian Renaissance style and crafted so beautifully that Michelangelo famously remarked " If paradise had doors , these would be it "



If u look closely u can see how they have managed to acheive the illusion of depth on the surface with some entities looking like they are in the forgeground and some in the background . The doorknobs if u can see are the heads of the people who worked on this .

After this we went onto a famous bridge .. This bridge is unique cause it has shops on both sides of it and all of them are jewelery shops many of them dating from the 1500's .. Interesting story behind this .. goes like this

The medici family ruled much of Florence for 3 or 4 centuries .. After a while they decided to build a new palace across the river from the old one .. The old one was converted into a govt center .. So to travel everyday from the new palace to the govt centre they Erected a private walkway at some height along and above the public bridge .. Now as there was a river, all the shops on the bridge were those that needed lots of water to operate .. Tanners , Dyers etc . So the whole place smelt really bad and the Medici's could not endure the smell on the way to work everyday.
So they increased the taxes on the shops on the bridge to such a level that the lowly industries could not afford it .. The only people who could afford it were ...... Gold Shop owners .. and they persist to this day .. the shops that is , not the extravagant taxes :P

So after taking us to a few more places of interest like an open air sculpture museum , the apartment where da vinci painted the Mona Lisa and a sculpture of a pig who's nose was so shiny cuz it was believed that if u rub it u will one day come back to Florence ,and after some Italian Gelato , the guide bid us farewell and we left Florence and drove to the Point Hotel