It took a while but I’ve worked it out. A visit to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel is the Pope’s way of getting you to experience Hell on Earth. Once you’ve paid the extortionate entrance fee those unlucky enough not to have done it online before they arrive need to queue up for at least three hours in the blistering heat. That’s fine though, as once you enter and pass through the chaotic bag scanning area you join the rest of the world who have also decided to come on the same day as you.
The Vatican operates a strict no-limits policy where they get as many people as Inhumanely possible into the building at once. And once they are in they pack in many more on escorted tour groups just to make sure it’s really unbearable.
They then give you a map that shows the route from start to finish. It’s not a plan of the building, that might allow you to cut a corner or take a shortcut, it’s an inexplicable line funnelling you through the masses on some sort of religious endurance pilgrimage to experience the real hell. The audio guide waffles on sanctimoniously about how wonderful the popes of yesteryear were to ‘obtain’ all these artefacts that explain how superb the church was to the ‘simple layman’ – what utter tosh – it’s definitely not worth the additional charge. Don’t worry about the dress code notes you hear either, with the crowds here you could visit in you underwear let alone long sleeves and long shorts, amongst the crowds no one is visible from the hat they shouldn’t be wearing down.
Finally you arrive at the Sistine Chapel, you are ushered in, told not to take photos or talk and to respect the religious chapel. What Rubbish! The whole experience is a glorified money making venture to exhibit the ill gotten gains of centuries of religious plundering. If you really feel the need to confer with a deity go off to a bar, get drunk and get merry with a prostitute and repent afterwards- it would still be less vile and sacrilegious than this Vatican tour!
Liam, The Sistine Chapel, The Vatican City, Italy, 17th June 2016
