please empty your brain below
St Peter's didn't really do much for me, but I can understand other people going: I spent a heck of a lot longer marvelling at the monuments at the Campo di Verano cemetery, which is absolutely vast. And has an extraordinary number of cats.

RogerW | 09.12.15 - 7:35 a.m. | #

Sad to hear the O level Latin wasn't much use. You mean you didn't need to tell anyone that Caecilius is in the garden?

FWIW there's an office in the Vatican consisting of a couple of guys whose job it is to translate all the Pope's speeches into Latin (and I think all the official Vatican documents too). I once listened to a very good radio documentary about them, how they obviously have to make up words to cover things invented since Roman times, and also how they speak to each other in Latin all the time to keep in the swing of things. Next time, you could try to find them and impress them with your declensions.

mighty mouse | 09.12.15 - 7:55 a.m. | #

Sounds like you had a good day.

I'm not sure the Vatican Museum is a must, really - I mean, it is huge, like the British Museum or the Louvre, and has lots of fascinating and unique things, Roman statues and heaps of art, etc, but it is just another museum really. The Sistine Chapel is the big draw, with lots of guards telling you not to sit down. It is a chapel, after all.

St Peter's is huge too. But some of the other ancient churches are fascinating. Santa Maria Maggiore for example. I think the trip up the dome at St Peter's is worth paying for, though. As I recall, the bus tour afiliated with the Vatican (yellow livery) was the most reasonable (particularly for those with lots of children).

Andrew | 09.12.15 - 8:07 a.m. | #

Andrew - Do Catholics still have lots of children?

Lorenzo Hermoso | 09.12.15 - 9:04 a.m. | #

Been to Rome. The main sites are good but the rest of the city is a dump.

Graffitti and litter everywhere, beggars and prostitutes proposing to you on every corner, particulary in the evening.

On my return, London, by comparison, seemed like utopia. Wouldn't go again!

Agent Z | 09.12.15 - 9:56 a.m. | #

Mighty Mouse - spot who did Cambridge Schools Project Latin!

And no, it isn't much good as a substitute for conversational Italian.

Bronchitikat | Homepage | 09.12.15 - 10:06 a.m. | #

I recall dragging my poor travelling companion right around the road encircling Vatican City just so I could say that I'd circumnavigated a whole country. Save for St Peter's and the museum entrance the "highlight" of an otherwise uneventful trek was seeing the railway viaduct protruding over the seemingly perpetual wall from the Holy See's one and only station.

Robert Johnson | Homepage | 09.12.15 - 10:10 a.m. | #

I agree with Agent Z, I visited Rome in 1967 and have never had any desire to go back there.

John | 09.12.15 - 10:16 a.m. | #

Franciscans wear the blue robes. They're rather fond of Papa Frank for what his choice of name is meant to signify, even though he's a Jesuit himself.

He's trying really hard to give a lovey-dovey image, considering. Franciscans might be all peace and harmony, but Jesuits are scary buggers. Not because they're inherently nasty or evil, but because they're all sharp as tacks and don't suffer fools gladly. Almost all hold a Master's in theology (this is actually uncommon in other orders), and most will have a similar degree in something else as well.

Spot the Catholic upbringing. :)

Chz | 09.12.15 - 10:17 a.m. | #

Lorenzo: some of us who visit Rome are not Catholics - except perhaps in the broadest sense that the Church of England claims to be Catholic too - and yet have have lots of children. Well, it feels like lots, when it comes to crowd control in the streets of Rome.

Just doing our bit to ensure that someone is paying taxes (and collecting the rubbish, and driving the trains and buses, and working in hospitals and care homes) when the older generations retire.

Andrew | 09.12.15 - 11:57 a.m. | #

All those security checks just to go into a public square? Didn't have to do that when I went there, although it was probably about 6 or 7 years ago. And yes it was also a Sunday when the Pope was making his speech.

Jon Combe | 09.12.15 - 12:42 p.m. | #

We loved Rome, and enjoyed visiting St Peter's and the Vatican City during August. However, our low-light was the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel tour. We all felt that we haven't been bossed and herded about, and patronised so much since I left school in the (late) '70s!

Frank F | 09.12.15 - 1:49 p.m. | #

Top tip is to hire a regulated tour guide for the day who has an official pass for both Rome and the Vatican. Many of the guides are history/archaeology professionals supplementing their income so are very knowledgeable. Best of all you will by-pass all the queues and will often get access to areas off-limits to the general public. Last time I went to the Vatican museum we were taken in through the staff entrance and went to the Sistine Chapel just after it had been closed to the public so had it to ourselves with the guide.

Alex | 09.12.15 - 4:28 p.m. | #

Another tip is to google Small Group Private Tours Sistine Chapel. Our tour met at 7:15 a.m., and approx 30 of us had the Sistine to ourselves for 40 minutes or so. It was an amazing experience.

Elsewhere | 09.12.15 - 5:48 p.m. | #

I did visit the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. I thought it was worthwhile and I'm a cultural heathen - I have to force myself to do the usual "touristy" things rather than whizzing around on buses, trams and trains seeing bits visitors never go to.

PC | 11.12.15 - 10:45 a.m. | #











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