You down with P-O-P-E? Yeah you know me

Pax tours are a great thing. I haven't mentioned them before since I haven't had a chance to go on one. Yesterday we were in Italy and I signed up to escort a pax (passenger) tour to Rome and the Vatican. Since all tours are given through independent companies, the ship sends crew members along as representatives of the company to make sure everything goes smoothly. For the crew, we get to go on $300 passenger tours for free.

The tour first went to the Colloseum for some photos and the Trevi Fountain. I've been to both of those places recently so it didn't have the same impact as the first trip, but still fun.

After lunch, we headed to the Vatican. Because (ideally), there's no talking in the Sistine chapel, outside in the square are replications of the artwork so that the tour guides can explain it all before we go in. Although my guide was very informative, he wasn't very interesting. So, I found myself shutting off the little earpiece we heard our guide through and listening to some of the other tourguides talk about the art.

The Sistine chapel itself is down a series of stairs and hallways - each one filled with countless paintings and sculptures. Some of my favorites were in some special style of painting made to look like marble carving, but actually just painted on flat walls. I took pictures: it's pretty amazing.

When you finally enter the Sistine chapel itself, you're impressed by the simplicity with which they've preserved the room. Almost all of the lighting was through windows. It made you really think about the 8 years Michaelangelo spent on his back on the ceiling, ruining his eyes to complete this project. And there's the creation of man painted unassumingly above you. I'll admit, it was a little smaller than I had imagined.

After that, St. Peter's Basilica was quite impressive. The large Golden frame (I went off from the group a little, so I didn't actually learn what it really is), reminded me a lot of the giant black curtain in the Ministry of magic from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Before we got on the bus to head back, we stopped by the gift shop (whose motto is "Our prices Vat-i-can't be beat"). Outside the gift shop was a little cart with gelato and drinks and things like that and eventually we saw some monks walk up. I wondered if they get a discount.