Vatican City

St Peter

Hello! Here is Group 2

On the 21^st November, our 7^th day in Europe, we went to Rome and the Vatican City. The Vatican City is the smallest nation in the world with an area of 0.5km² with 900 citizens. It gained its independence in 1929, when Mussolini (the leader of Italy, then) gave Vatican City back to the Pope. The Pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and rules the Vatican City.

The Vatican City is heavily guarded and protected by Swiss guards. This is most probably due to the fact that Switzerland is a neutral country. They do not take sides because they do not like to be involved in wars. When we enter the Vatican City, we had to go through a security check just like what we would go through at airports.

Some places of interest are the Vatican Museum which includes the Raphael rooms, the Sistine chapel and St. Peter’s Square.

One of the interesting things which awed us was the Sistine chapel. There are beautiful paintings in the chapel done by Michelangelo. The right side of the chapel’s ceiling consists of paintings depicting the life of Moses while the left side depicts the life of Jesus. Michelangelo was actually a sculptor and was initially instructed by the Pope to construct the sculpture of the buildings. But the Pope decided to ask him to paint the ceiling of the chapel instead within 4 years. We were really amazed by his talent and hard work in completing his paintings. We found out that he used a structure to elevate himself and had to lean back while painting the ceiling. It must have been very tiring for him to do so and we admire his persistence.

Up till now, the Sistine chapel is used by the Pope to host important services. In the Sistine Chapel, we also saw the painting of Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment”. In the painting, heaven and hell is shown. The good guys will go to heaven and stay with God, while the bad guys will go to hell. One interesting fact was that Michelangelo painted the figures in the nude which was regarded as unacceptable by the Pope. The Pope then instructed another painter to cover up the nude paintings. Another interesting feature was the attention given to details such as facial expressions and muscles which could be due to his background as a sculptor. We were really impressed with his paintings.

We then went to St Peter’s church which is the longest church in the world. St Peter was one of the disciples of Jesus Christ. There was a statue of St Peter inside the church. It was believed that those who get to touch the right foot of St Peter’s statue will be blessed. Many of us actually queued up to touch his right foot to pray for good results for our O levels next year! Outside the church, there was a row of columns on both the right and left side, which looked like hands that welcomed those who come to the Vatican City.

Personally, we felt that it was a great learning experience for us as this visit let us know more about the Catholics and the history behind the Vatican City. The painting of “The Last Judgment” left the most impactful impression on us as the painting consisted of 310 human beings. We really learnt a lot from this visit.

Crater of Mount Vesuvius

The next day, we went to climb one of the most famous active volcanoes in the world, Mount Vesuvius! It was an exhilarating learning experience for us as it was our very first time climbing up a volcano. It is a ‘once in a life time’ experience to see such a breathtaking sight. Many people would only have seen a volcano from a photograph but we get to experienced it first-hand. Even though the journey up the volcano was hard and tedious, we managed to encourage one another to continue climbing up the winding and steep slope.

When we reached the crater, the atmosphere gets colder. The oxygen level was lowered and the air pressure increased. This caused our ears to be blocked and we were shivering in the cold. We saw sulphuric gases coming out from the cracks in the crater. According to the tour guide, Mount Vesuvius was initially larger than its present form. This was due to the massive explosion that happened 2000 years ago which blown off half of Mount Vesuvius. In order to monitor the state of the volcano, satellite and GPS are used to monitor the heated areas. This will allow them to warn and evacuate the people living near the area if an eruption is expected.

Despite the cold weather, we were proud of ourselves as we made it up Mt. Vesuvius. It was a very rare opportunity for us as not many Singaporeans would get to climb up the volcano.

May, KahMin, JingHeng, Manickan