Ainsley and I ventured out by ourselves today to visit the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. The museum is lovely and fairly small, but there is a gift shop about every 50 yards inside the building. It was really kind of funny. In almost every gallery there was a kiosk set up where you could buy books about the Vatican, a 2010 Vatican calendar (I didn't actually see a 2009 option), a rosary or some other trinket. We avoided all of them (with the exception of buying Derek's great aunt a rosary that had been blessed by the Pope himself. She's a nun and will likely never have the chance to visit the Vatican in person), but I had to laugh when we entered the final gift shop and the woman in front of me said very sarcastically "Oh, no! It's my last chance to buy something!"
The museum itself was not terribly interesting to either of us (sorry...just being honest), but we did see some things we thought were pretty.
No idea what this is...just thought it looked neat.
Ainsley asked me to take a picture of this vase. I have no idea why other than perhaps the fact that it's pink?
Yet another item that I just thought looked interesting. A really pretty stained glass piece, obviously, but I have no idea who the artist is or why it's in the museum. Wanna hire me as your tour guide?
I thought this was really interesting. It's a letter from Galileo that was on display in one of the gift shops. I almost laughed out loud about it. Perhaps the Vatican is developing a sense of humor over being wrong about the whole sun moving around the Earth thing?
This room was roped off in the museum, so we couldn't actually walk down the hall and look around, but I thought this was really lovely.
After walking through the museum (Ainsley and I did it backward since I was forced to take the "handicap route" with her stroller) we headed into the Sistine Chapel. You're not supposed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, so I disavow any knowledge of how the following photos were acquired.
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