ROME - ITALIA

Rome is one of world’s most photogenic cities - not surprising when you remember what’s here - The Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, St Peter’s Square, Spanish Steps, Colosseum… It is a romantic place for honey-moon, favorite holiday destination, and city of fashion.

Vatican city (Citta del Vaticano), the papal residence, was built over the tomb of Saint Peter. The Vatican’s position as a sovereign state within a state was quaranteed by the Lateran Treaty of 1929, marked by the building of a new road, the Via della Conciliazione. Vatican is the smallest state in the world, based in Rome in Italy.

The papal residence

Today millions of visitor’s come to Rome and rush to the Vatican Museums. Vatican Museums house their fabulous masterpieces in palaces originally built for Renaissance popes such as Julius II, Innocent VIII and Sixtus IV. Most of the later addition were made in the 18th century, when priceless works of art accumulated by earlier popes were firts put on show. Vatican Museum is home to the Sistine Chapel and Raphael Rooms as well as to one of the world’s most important art collections.

The National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo inside retraces its history. The castle has various exhibits ranging from Renaissance paintings and pottery to antique military weapons. A huge spiral ramp ascends upwards the Castel Sant Angelo for about 400 feet.

When you come to the Sistine Chapel to stand in awe, necks strained to see the work of a genius. No artist since has come close to the scale, technical skill and majestic composition and design of this masterpiece. His Last Judgement (1535) painted on the alter wall completes the most powerful cycle of painting in the western world. In the Sistine Chapel the great sculptor became a great painter.

The massive walls of the Sistine Chapel, the main chapel in the Vatican Palace, were covered with frescoes of some finest artists of the 15th and 16th centuries. The 12 paintings on the side walls, by artists including Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Signorelli, show analogous episodes from the life of the Christ and the Moses. The decoration of the Sistine chapel, treasure of Vatican museums, was completed between 1534 and 1541 by Michelangelo, who added the great altar fresco, the Last Judgement. The famous Sistine chapel ceiling frescoed by Michelangelo with scenes from Genesis (1508-12), and the altar wall with the Last Judgement (1534-41)

Michelangelo’s ‘Creation of Adam’, Sistine ceiling in Vatican Museums.

‘The Last Judgement’ by Michelangelo, Cappella Sistina in Vaticani, Rome.

Michelangelo’s Pieta, St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican, Rome

The four rooms known as the Stanze of Raphael form part of the apartment situated on the second floor of the Pontifical Palace that was chosen by Julius II della Rovere, the Pope. as his own residence and used also by his successors. The picturesque decoration was carried out by Raphael and his pupils between 1508 and 1524.

‘The School of Athens’ by Raphael, Raphael Rooms in Vatican Museum.

St Peter’s Basillica is the world’s largest Basilica of Christianity, nested into the heart of the Vatican city, with its 186 metres of length (218 if we consider the porch too), a height of 46 metres in the central aisle, a main dome 136 metre high and 42 metres large in diameter. The huge façade is 114 metres wide and 47 metres high. It has a surface of 22000 square metres and twenty thousand persons can pray in it.

Rome’s squares are one of the main attractions of the Italian Capital, perhaps ‘the core’ of the city itself. In Piazza for meeting each other, to amuse, chat with friends, and for events or for the daily ‘happy hour’.

Saint Piere Square

Saint Petet Square

ColosseumThe hugest structure of its type in the ancient Rome, the elliptical-shaped Colosseum, took about ten years to build.

Pantheon is one of the most impressive buildings of the Imperial Rome. Originally dedicated as a temple to “all the gods”, therefore the name

Patheon fountain

Patheon night