Vatican City - St. Peter's Basilica

We were both up early Monday morning, mostly adjusted to the time change. While I sat in the breakfast room at the hotel and uploaded pics, Brian headed out for a walk. An hour or so later, he called me from Vatican City and said to walk over to meet him. It wasn't exactly a short walk. In SF terms, it was probably like walking from the Marina to the Financial District - doable, but a cab or bus would have been just as reasonable. After a brisk 20+ minute walk, I met Brian and we stopped in to a bar (which here, is a cafe) and grabbed a danish and a cappucino.

We headed over to Vatican City and joined the thousands of tourists already there. We got into line to enter St. Peter's Basilica. It was the most disproportionate queue-length to wait-time ratio I've seen in my entire life - a couple thousand people (seriously!) wrapped more than halfway around the circumference of the place took only 15 minutes to get in the door. Amazing!

While in line, we met a nice elderly couple from Bruges. Upon watching our failed attempt at a quality longarm shot with the Basilica centered behind us, the nice Belgian man offered to take our picture. So he did:



Inside, as one would expect, the art, architecture and spirit of the space was truly amazing. With thousands of others, we sauntered from piece to piece, reading placards, taking pics, observing. Brian thinks that most (if not all) of the people there have no idea what they're taking photos of. I agree and am certainly no exception. Still, many snaps ensued.

One thing I didn't snap, but wish I did was a particular couple - a blind woman and her husband. They were standing a few feet away from me admiring an elaborate wall-mounted marble sculpture. As the woman moved both hands slowly over it taking it in with her fingertips, her husband spoke quietly into her ear describing each detail of the piece. I'm not sure what it says about me or my sensibilities toward art, but amid all the glorious breathtaking artwork, that was easily the most beautiful thing I saw that day.