After a good breakfast with GF items and being warned not to take the bus as they are not accessible (which I did not understand as every bus I saw had a wheelchair sign on it), we taxied over to the meeting point for our Vatican Tour that I had booked through Viator. I really wanted to see the Vatican after seeing the Sistine Chapel visit in Vancouver a couple of months ago, however I was quite frustrated with my inability to tour the Vatican as a person who used a mobility device and pay for a “regular” tour. So we had to pay for a private tour for Andrew and myself so that we could be escorted to the proper area to take the stair lift down to the Sistine Chapel. We did miss part of the Vatican Museum as that I understand is not accessible and the benefit being the way we entered the Sistine Chapel was the way the Pope enters it and other people exit – so the ceiling was the right side up for us! Unfortunately there are not pictures to be taken inside the Chapel so I have to leave that to your imagination and what you can see on the internet. Entering the Vatican the tour guide paved the way for us, I had to register as a person with disabilities and show my accreditation that I am rated greater than 80% disabled (which I have which was interesting to obtain in Canada as we do not really “label” how disabled a person is), and we were in for free! Very nice – this apparently is common in Italy – if you have a significant disability you are given access gratis. Not knowing how other tours worked, here is what we did. We looked at St. Peters Basilica from the terrace, along with the Vatican Gardens. Then we went to the Pinecone piazza area where there are pictures of the Sistine Chapel for you to study and talk about. They do this so that the guides can speak and answer questions as no talking is allowed in the Chapel. As we had just seen and listened to this, we got through this part pretty fast, including a comment from the tour guide saying “don’t you want to take pictures”? I guess she fully did not understand about the traveling Sistine Chapel visit! Then we went into the museum, the long, very long hallway! I do know that normally people see this AFTER seeing the Sistine Chapel as at times we felt like salmon swimming upstream as most of the visitors were streaming towards us and not with us. What a gorgeous exhibit – you will see all the pictures below. I just loved the art work! Then down the stairlift and a long a one way tunnel (which they controlled who was going in each direction) to enter the Sistine Chapel from the Pope’s view or exit for the regular people touring. After this it was back up the stair climber, back down the LONG hall and we decided it was time for refreshments and we parted ways with the guide. I had noticed though some other parts of the Vatican that had elevators so after our drinks and walk around the garden, we went back and saw the Egyptian exhibit. It was just as well done as the other parts of the museum – in fact there were some pieces sponsored by a Canadian group there! Our guide, before leaving us had told us that St. Peters closes at 7pm, which is 30 minutes after the Vatican. So we decided to push it and walk there (there is no direct route between the Vatican and St. Peters anymore) and guess what? No line! Up the elevator for me and into the BEAUTIFUL church! Now I know why they wanted it as the highest point in Rome – words cannot explain enough how gorgeous it is. I hope my pictures do it justice! At this point I was exhausted, had walked over 15km in the day and needed to get back to the hotel – so we took a taxi back! We had dinner in the restaurant and called it an “early” night for Roman standards! Captions to come…
