The Vatican
Map
May, 2002
There’s a two kilometre-long five deep queue of people standing in the rain. They’re willing to pay 10 euros just to get in to the Vatican. I strongly suggest you march right past the line and go directly to the entrance. No one yells out: “Hey, mister, no cutting!” People who haven’t spent the better part of their lives in a queue for bread or milk can put up with a little bit of queuing to see the pope.
Some bits inside the Vatican look like Versailles, others like a prison.
Sacred parking lot.
I couldn’t care less about any of the world’s museums. I’m selective and only visit the most interesting ones. I went to the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel, but don’t let you make a beeline for it — first you have to walk through fifteen different rooms. The crowd carries you through them, one after the other.
The chapel itself is gloomy and resembles a metro statin without any passenger platforms. Michelangelo did the ceiling. He certainly didn’t skimp on the 3D imagery (or rather, what was considered 3D imagery at the time) — completing drawings of columns and placing people atop them. A brigade of 20 designers, his contemporaries, did the walls. However, they forgot to coordinate, so everyone just drew their own chosen characters sitting on clouds against a sky-blue background. The end result looks like a soup full of croutons.
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