Muscling through the Vatican Museum

In this video clip, I’m surrounded by a cacophony of tour guides explaining one of the highlights of the Vatican Museum’s collection, Raphael’s “School of Athens.” This is the last stop as they muscle their way through all the art to get their gangs to the coveted Sistine Chapel – just around the corner from here. In the video, I’m talking softly as to not disturb all the guiding going on…so you can barely hear me (turn on YouTube’s captions for subtitles). With emerging economies (China, India, Russia) and more cruise groups than ever, must-see cultural attractions like the Vatican Museum are jam-packed with tourists at all hours. Still, of course, these attractions are great experiences. This clip gives you a feeling of the crush of tour groups as we see the Raphael Rooms, which were done at the same time Michelangelo was creating the Sistine Chapel frescoes a few steps away.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

Comments

2 Replies to “Muscling through the Vatican Museum”

  1. How very sad for today’s tourists. I remember seeing the Sistine
    Chapel in the 70’s. There were no crowds and I was able to lay down on the floor and absorb the magnificient art work for as long as I wanted.

  2. +1 to sherry. Another unfortunate development that came with the crowds is the exceedingly frustrating selfie phenomenon that disrupts both the view and the flow of traffic for those of us who are there to see the art work and not there to be seen standing or sitting in front of the art work. We splurged on an early morning Vatican tour that got us in before the crowds, with an excellent guide who made sure we hit the must see items. It was money well spent.

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