It is Day 16 and we are reaching the end of our time in Rome! Many of us have been scrambling to cross off the last few items on our lists of things to do. A couple of those things involving exactly what was on the itinerary today: The Vatican Museum and The Sistine Chapel! We were reunited with Gino, our beloved tour guide, for the day.

To be completely honest, every aspect of the Vatican Museum was breath-taking (and I’m not just talking about the many flights of stairs that were climbed in the process). The experience as a whole left me speechless. You won’t see a single ugly thing inside. Well, except for the painting that depicted “a gentleman with big ears like a stupid donkey” according to Gino.

We walked through rooms and hallways and staircases filled with sculptures, decorated with frescoes, and accented with gold. Every step we took was upon vibrant marble slabs or intricate mosaic tiles. Although many of today’s experiences seemed to focus more on the artistic elements rather than engineering elements, our scientific brains continued to spin in their normal fashion.

The Vatican Museum contained more coffers in one place than I have ever seen. There were coffers in domes, vaults, arches, and essentially any where else you could fit them. There were coffers with flowers, with faces, and with simple geometric shapes. In addition to the coffers, we walked through a hallway with massive hanging tapestries. Gino was particularly interested in one where the eyes of Jesus seem to follow you as you walk down the hall. He explained the unique use of perspective along with the large looms required to create such a magnificent tapestry. One last highlight from the Vatican Museum was seeing some of Raphael’s famous pieces in the apartments of Pope Julius II. Again, the detail and beauty continues to amaze me.

The Sistine Chapel, again magnificent simply in its artistic value, but also in its use of engineering. Michelangelo needed to design a way to hoist himself 60+ feet in the air in order to create such a magnificent ceiling. He developed a platform that positioned him within arm’s length of the curved ceiling. In addition, it needed to hold the weight of multiple grown men and large quantities of lime sand and water. Michelangelo built a bridge structure that utilized horizontal posts and followed the slope of the ceiling. Unfortunately, I cannot grace your screens with these beautiful frescoes since we were consistently reminded that “no fotos” were allowed.

That is all for today! Ciao!