On the last day of our Topdeck tour, before we said goodbye to everyone (which we actually didn’t do properly which sucked), we went to visit the Vatican, the world’s smallest state located right in the middle of Rome.

The Vatican, one of the oldest institutions in the world is home to some of the world’s greatest art collected over centuries. Not only that, but the place itself is a work of art, the world’s best artists having designed, painted, sculptured the buildings in which they sit. It is no wonder then that people stream out and wait in the hot Roman sun to get in to have a look. Just even when you get in and look round at the gardens you realise how amazing it all is.

Every roof, dome, floor, and wall is carefully decorated, stunningly gorgeous. The colours of the mosaics, of the paintings on the walls, everything was just unbelievable — I don’t think I have ever walked through such beautifully decorated buildings quite like this. Every where you looked, there was something to look at, to enjoy.

One amazing thing we saw was in the Gallery of Tapestries on the way to the Sistine Chapel. The roof was covered in detailed paintings that were painted so that they looked like they were actually sculptured, shadows and depth painted so well that sometimes it was hard to believe that they weren’t.

For me, the next gallery was something I found quite special: the Gallery of Maps. On the side of the walls were in-depth maps of the areas of Italy, focusing on each region. These maps took three years to do along the entire gallery, itself rather long. These maps were then complemented by the roof, beautifully sculptured (for real this time), painted and lit up, it was beautiful to walk down and enjoy — along with hundreds of others.

Unfortunately, the next stop was the Sistine Chapel where photography is not allowed. However, the frescos there are just amazing, breathtaking. When you consider that it was only Michelangelo, one man who hated painting, designed and painted the whole thing, it puts on another level of disbelief. It certainly is a marvel, a wonder of the world, and something that everyone should see. The ceilings, the Last Judgement, all of it is just beauty that its impossible to describe — in fact its kinda spiritual in a way.

Following the Sistine Chapel, we descended down to Saint Peter’s Square and Basilica. Here, this is the main church of the Vatican, where mass is head in and outside, and here it is just as spectacular as the rest of it. The scale of the building is just massive.

The church is dominated in the middle with Saint Peter’s Baldachin, a large bronze canopy. It takes your focus as you gaze down the church towards the door and it is simply breathtaking. The whole church with its scale. I’ve never been in some quite this big. Its quite a different church from the Sagrada Familia which is also massive but that still maintains quite an intimate feeling, whereas this is more of a shock and awe building.

The outside was being set up for the weekly Wednesday mass that is conducted by the Pope which would have been nice to pop along and see, but alas we didn’t. Yay for being sick and just wanting to lie around all day and do nothing to avoid the hot glare of the sun. It was a shame we couldn’t do that but there is always next time.