Visiting the Vatican city in Rome was something of a big deal when we visited.
For starters, I’d read about it, seen photos about it and heard so many stories for so long that my excitement was through the roof at finally being able to visit.
Then there’s the fact that you have to prepare yourself properly before you visit.
You have to get up early enough to avoid the crowd (which we really didn’t do that well – it was early-ish, but not early enough to avoid queues) and basically pre-book whatever you can long in advance.
Even from a distance, as our taxi pulled up to the Vatican and the view of St. Peter’s Basilica came into view, it was all I could do to not peel off my seatbelt and hop out running even before the car came to a standstill.
It’s every bit as impressive as they said it would be an instead of joining the queue straight away, I proceed to wander around the square, taking in the impressive beauty of everything around us.
It wasn’t until Lloyd pointed out the rather fast-growing queue that I finally hot-footed it over to the queue to head into St. Peter’s Basilica.
Now when you visit, it is worth noting that you probably need cash on you to climb to the top of the St. Peter’s Basilica. Thankfully, I had just enough loose change on me to get one of us up here (didn’t even think of taking cash out for Rome – we almost never travel with cash anyway) and seeing as Lloyd had seen it before (it was his second time here) I went up on my own.
The stairs are relatively easy enough to climb (not easy but easy enough) and there are bits of it that can get quite tight but before long you soon find yourself around the roof area of St. Peter’s Basilica.
There’s still another little climb here before you get right up to the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, with its impressive views over Rome and the Vatican.
I spent as long as possible just revelling in the view and the fact that I was finally here! (Perhaps more so that I should – we still had a lot more to check out here, after all).
Soon enough, I made my way back down where I met Lloyd before heading into St. Peter’s Basilica.
St. Peter’s Basilica is as impressive inside as it is outside, perhaps even more so?
It’s a gorgeous church and quite an impressive architectural masterpiece.
Everywhere you turn, there’s another stunning detail just waiting to impress you and it’s safe to say it was without a doubt one of my highlights of that trip to Rome.
Eventually though, I had to tear myself away from St. Peter’s Basilica to head over to the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums.
Stopping for one more quick look at St. Peter’s Basilica as we left, we quickly hot-footed it over to the entrance of the Vatican Museums.
Read all about that in this next post here (was gonna put it all in one but it was waaaay too many photos for one post!)
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