Vatican City – St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel

It’s not everyday that you visit the capital of Christendom. It’s definitely not common to visit twice in 24 hours and throw in a visit by the big guy himself, the Pope. On Christmas Eve & Christmas day DUS and I toured Vatican City: St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s square.

St. Peter’s Basilica is huge. Consecrated in 1626, it has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world. It’s hard to describe the size of this church and after eavesdropping on a few tour guides, they seem to have a similar problem. From the entrance door to the Naive is 715 feet. That’s two American football fields. Despite its size, the Church is designed in such a way that if feels intimate due to the proportions of figures, windows and other architectural feature. Statues on the ground level are human size while figures towards the ceiling are variable giants. The famous dove stained glass window behind the alter looks relatively small at the Church entrance, but in reality it’s over six feet high. That’s a big bird.

Click for Vatican city video montage

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is often said to be the single greatest piece of artwork by a single individual anywhere in the world. I would agree. At 132 feet long and 65 feet from the main floor of the chapel ceiling it’s hard to comprehend how one person could design, paint and finish this masterpiece in less than four years. Not to mention it was the year 1508. A key to making the most of the experience was a small set of binoculars (that I carry on every trip) to study the details in each part of the ceiling. The scale and level of detail is nothing short of amazing. Each figure is painted as if you were standing right in from of it: Eye lashes, wrinkles, they’ve got it all.

Sistine Chapel (Click for more images from Vatican City)

Every year at noon on Christmas day the Pope address Catholics around the world from the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica and in 2011 “we were there man.” The bright Mediterranean sun warmed the crowd of thousands as Pope Benedict XVI wished Merry Christmas in 40 different languages as wells as conducting the lords prayer (I’m pretty sure, it was in Latin :)). Both DUS and I reflected on how powerful and uplifting the experience was. No matter what your faith, this was a special event in a special place.

If you’ve ever wondered about going to Rome for Christmas, this event alone is worth the trip.

Rome – The Eternal City

Rome is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever visited. Far removed from Scandinavia in climate, culture and history, Rome is truly the Eternal City. Rome has two and a half thousand years of history, so it was pretty hard to cover in five days. Therefore, I will not attempt to cover it in one blog post either… The city is roughly broken into five neighborhoods: Ancient Rome, Vatican City, Northern Rome, Pantheon area and Trastereve. I’ll try and cover each in an individual post (or combined a few :)).

Let’s start with the oldest part of the city, Ancient Rome. This area holds many of the classical sights in Rome like the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Capital Hill. One could easily dedicate a whole day in this area and with a little imagination the history really comes alive. Audio guides and travel books really help when visiting Rome and in Ancient Rome they are a must. We used Rick Steves’ free audio guides and they were great (even better if you have his guide book).

Impressively big, old and in surprisingly decent shape the Colosseum was our first stop in Ancient Rome. Completed in 80 AD, this massive 50,000 seat arena was home to the greatest spectacles in the Ancient world. We did a self guided tour of the different levels and enjoyed the best view of Ancient Rome (located on the third level). The Colosseum is basically about death. To be honest, it’s kinda sad learning about all the people and animals that were killed here. When the stadium first opened, a 100 day festival was held in which 2,000 men and 9,000 animals were killed. Events like these continued in the Colosseum for roughly 500 years.

From the Colosseum we ventured to The Forum, center of ancient Roman public life. This is a well maintained area of unwell maintained ancient relics. Touring the Roman Forum requires a lot of reading and imagination to try and picture what this impressive area must have looked like. All that being said, some of the standing buildings are 2,000 years old so what should one really expect :))

The Roman Fourm (click for more images of Ancient Rome)

And for those of you with extra time on your hands… Here is the “long version” video of Ancient Rome

Munich: Home of Beer Gardens & Beer Halls

With a bit of reservation, we packed up and headed toward the capital of Bavaria, Munich. The drive from Český Krumlov to Munich is fantastic. The quintessential countryside is picture perfect with rolling hills of pine forests, wheat fields and other images that look like BMW commercials and illustrations on German beer advertisements.

Our first stop was none other than the famous English garden in the heart of the city. With a clear blue sky and warm temperatures we luckily found a table in the busy area around the Chinese Tower. Here you can find all kinds of German fair: Bratwürst, smoked fish and of course, delicious German Bier. Purchasing this tasty beverage is kinda fun. You need to pay a deposit for the stein; apparently they have a reputation of leaving with the tipsy tourists. If you need a refill, just turn in you glass and grab another (after you pay of course).

"Beer booth" in the English Garden (click for more Munich images)

It’s hard to find a better experience than sitting in the warm sun listening to German Oom-pah music and laughing with family. Well, that is unless you are in the Hofbraeuhaus listening to German Oom-pah music and laughing with family — which is what we did the other part of our time in Munich 🙂

Fun at the Hofbrauhaus (click to see the video)

Spending some “quality time” in Germany, while enjoying refreshing alcoholic beverages made me wonder a bit about Scandinavia and what I would call its “unfriendly” relationship with alcohol. Scandinavia has some of the strictest consumption laws in the world. In Sweden, buying alcohol over 3.5% requires that you go to Systembolaget, which is the state-run liquor store. In Norway, a beer at a restaurant can cost in upwards of $15-20. And in Denmark… well in Denmark they are a bit cooler, so it’s not such a big deal. Anyway, I find it interesting that European countries take such different approaches to the governance of alcohol. What I have witnessed is that there are more out of control intoxicated people in Scandinavia than in Germany (locals I mean). In Norway they practice something called “vorspiel.” It involves drinking heavily before hitting the town because liquor is so expensive. Same thing happens in Sweden. Even more interesting is that the Germans, French and Italians seem to “control” their consumption better. I can honestly say that I have not seen a drunk French or Italian person (ok, I have seen some Germans having too much fun :)). In the EU, Scandinavia has some of the lowest per capita consumption of alcohol, however, I would argue that the way they consume is more unhealthy compared to their neighbors (yes, that was a huge generalization).

Systembolaget store in Sweden

Český Krumlov – A Southern Bohemian Favorite

After two fun days in Prague, we adventured deeper into Southern Bohemia to our favorite destination of the trip, Český Krumlov. This small city is best known for its fine architecture, art of the historic old town and the Český Krumlov Castle.

Český Krumlov (Click for more images)

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The Český Krumlov Castle is big. Its large size seems disproportionate to the size of the little city. There are several tours running throughout the day including a “night watchman” tour which unfortunately we missed. Another miss was the famous music festival that was schedule to start three days after we departed. This was yet another lesson for me in the importance of detailed research before a trip. These small events can often turn a good trip into a great one (like visiting The Vatican on Christmas day).

A highlight of our stay was a float down the Vltava river, which meanders through the beautiful countryside, passes by ugly closed industrial factories, and finishes in beautiful Český Krumlov. We found it fun to stop at the local “watering holes” to enjoy a beer, people watching and the occasional canoe turnover at the spillways.

We stayed near the city center in a place called Pension U Náměstí. This nice little place is perfect walking distance to all the sights and close enough to the Church for the bells to keep you up at night (should have closed your window mom :))

Pension U Náměstí

Back in Prague

Back in the car we continued to travel south towards our next stop, Prague.

This was my second trip to Prague and it was no less amazing. Prague is a fairy tale city and has a very Harry Potter-esque type feel. We explored Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, listened to a Jazz concert in the Old Town Square and took our chances on public transportation (where I got us lost). We stayed just outside the old town in a family run operation called Lovely Prague Apartments which came with the “exciting” extras that are common when renting local (like cash only & weird parking set-up, etc.). These small things aside, the huge two bedroom flat with full kitchen was even equipped with four Pilsner Urquells to get our vacation started!

Jazz Festival (Click for more images of Prague)

The one downside of Prague is the hoards of tourists that come from all over the world. Outside of the Vatican city, Prague’s Charles Bridge and Old Town are the most crowded places I’ve been in Europe. Despite this draw back, Prague is not to be missed.

Busy Prague Old Town Square