The Vatican Museum

We left our hostel early the next morning in order to visit the Vatican Museum. The tour guides were out in force that morning and we were bombarded with offers of free tours! Skipped line! It culminated in an old Australian following us for two blocks trying to convince us to take his tour, "I get you in for free! No lines! We leave soon! You could join us!" The "join us" was a mistake. I could not resist the classic zombie movie line and Tallis and I walked the next half block like zombies say "Join us! JOin US!" When the tour guide realized he was being mocked he left us alone.

Contrary to what Rick Steves said, there were no lines to get into the Vatican museum. I now understood how the tour guides said they could get us into the museum without waiting in any lines. You can't wait in lines if there are none.

The Vatican museum was very big and filled with very old/famous things. Lots of marble statues with not enough clothes on. One section was filled with statues of animals, which was really cool. Apparently one Pope was something of a naturalist. We finished off the museum in the Sistine Chapel. The entire room was painted by some famous artist or something and we weren't allowed to take pictures. We got yelled at for sitting down again and eventually left.

All the rooms and hallways in the museum had amazing ceilings like this one. We spent pretty much the entire time doing what Schyler's doing in this picture (The hallway behind Schyler was filled with ancient maps of different parts of Italy).

As we were leaving we walked past a large group of people heading into the museum. Schyler picked up a flyer someone had dropped and walked past the line asking everyone "You want tour? I give you good tour! No lines! I give you special discount!" At the end of the line he threw the paper on the ground in disgust! "Now I know what if feels like to be rejected!"