Making Memories: A Mum & Son on Tour

Yesterday morning we decided, for our last full day in Rome, to visit the Sistine Chapel. Off we went to the Vatican Museums, very naively thinking we can simply buy tickets to get in once we were there. Well, you can but it is timed entry and we could have been waiting a while. Thankfully, we got propositioned by some random guy asking us if we wanted a tour. Yes, we say and we were promptly lead down a back alley. Errr…..maybe this was a mistake. Thankfully not. This was a guy drumming up business for the tour guides. And we scored a 9am tour. Perfetta!

We went and lined up and admired the imposing figures of Raphael and Michelangelo hovering over the massive marble exit doors.

These museums are amazing. Lots to see here (although a little boring for 13 year old boys who don’t love art). I really enjoyed it though.

Stunning artworks and stautes all over the place. Of course, there is no photography within the actual Sistine Chapel with The Ceiling but it was amazing to see. Did you know it took Michelangelo only four years to paint it? He did it all on his own, threw a pot of paint on the Pope at one point and ended up crippled by the end if it all because of the way he stood while painting all those long hours. He also temporarily blinded himself in one eye. All of this and he never really considered himself an artist.

After our tour we stopped for lunch across the road before heading off to our next stop, The Colosseum. Hang on, I hear you say, didn’t you already do The Colosseum? Thanks for asking. Why yes we did. The original tickets I had booked were for the arena floor but the tour company had to change them. We were really looking forward to it so we booked a second tour. I am really glad we did because we got to see things we hadn’t seen the day before, including this chapel that has only been excavated in the last 10 years and is believed to be one of the oldest in Rome

Those frescoes are original. Still so much colour. They are beautiful.

We also saw some heads

And got to learn where all the marble in Rome was sourced from. Jacob was very impressed with how far away some of it came from.

We moved on to The Colosseum floor. Where we, almost literally, bumped into a kid from Jacobs primary school. He family were on the last leg of their holidays. It really is a small world. Just wild to think we met someone we knew all the way on the other side of the world. Crazy. It is still making me laugh to think about.

Anyway, we finished our tour at about 6pm and we headed off in search of dinner.

Tomorrow we move on to Venice.