As my last week in Rome was coming to an end I thought it was necessary to book a few tours and become a full on tourist.

So I took a 40 min bus ride to a different country…the Vatican!

I had a 3 hour tour of the Museums and Galleries in the Vatican, The Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica. Out of the 9 people on our tour 7 were from Australia and New Zealand.

Museo Chiaramonti was the first Museum I entered which had 3000 Roman busts on display. As we walked from one side of the room to the other the tour guide explained some of the most important people in the roman history.

My 3rd favourite place we visited was the Gallery of Tapestries.

The Roof was gorgeous and there were 9 massive tapestries all over the walls.

One of the most amazing tapestries was the Resurrection of Christ Tapestry which was created in 1531.

My 2nd favourite Gallery was the Gallery of Geographical Maps.

This Gallery led to the Sistine Chapel and over the course of the 120 meters there are 31 maps displayed geographically positioning Italy’s regions together. Although the paintings of the maps are hundreds of years old they are 80% accurate! ( By this point I noticed on my ticket how much entry to the Vatican Museum was (not a lot) and had paid over triple for the tour so I was really listening and trying to absorb my money’s worth of information.)

I stayed in this room for a lot longer than I was meant too for two reasons 1) I couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. 2) I was also trying to process the text I had just received from another au pair saying  “Do you want to go to the Vatican on Sunday its free entry on the last Sunday of every month”.

That then encouraged me to really get my moneys worth and since we were a small tour I started asking 100 questions a minute.

This bronze statue of Heracles was found in 1864 and it was discovered that the statue had been struck by lightning.

The last and my favourite place we visited was the Sistine Chapel! Although all photos were prohibited as well as speaking we spent 15 minutes seated admiring the art work.

After the Vatican Museum tour I went to St Peters Basilica which also had amazing sights!