There’s something must-do about climbing high buildings to get a good view over a new city. To get the best view over Rome you have to go to another country. St Peter’s in The Vatican is 132 metres high and gives a stunning vista in all directions. If you can survive the hot, humid stairs to the top.
You can take a lift the first half of the journey skyward, but after that you have to walk. Along with several hundred other people.
As you reach the top of the dome the pathway gets narrower, the queue gets slower and the air gets hotter. But you reach the top and it all becomes worthwhile. The view out towards Castel Sant’Angelo is as stunning as you hoped. Looking west the Vatican gardens are perfectly manicured and very-well watered, as green as you would expect in the rainiest of English parks.
The dome was designed by Michelangelo and is 42 metres in diameter as well as 42 metres from top to bottom. It is said that Michelangelo created it 42 metres wide in order not to be bigger than the Pantheon’s 43 metre dome. Nonsense or truth it makes a nice link between the ancient and the Renaissance buildings in the Eternal City.
If you are considering climbing the dome bear in mind:
You need to be fit.
You need to have not too much of a waistline or you will get stuck
You need a bottle of water.
Enjoy!
The german poet Goethe did the same in Rome 1786:
“Then we entered the Sistine Chapel, which we found bright and cheerful, and with a good light for the pictures. The Last Judgment divided our admiration with the paintings on the roof by Michael Angelo. I could only see and wonder. The mental confidence and boldness of the master, and his gandeur of conception, are beyond all expression. After we had looked at all of them over and over again, we left this sacred building, and went to St. Peter’s, which received from the bright heavens the loveliest light possible, and every part of it was clearly lighted up. As men willing to be pleased, we were delighted with its vastness and splendour, and did not allow an over-nice or hypocritical taste to mar our pleasure. We suppressed every harsher judgment: we enjoyed the enjoyable.
Lastly we ascended the roof of the church, where one finds, in little, the plan of a well-built city,—houses and magazines, springs (in appearance, at least), churches, and a great temple, all in the air, and beautiful walks between. We mounted the dome, and saw glistening before us the regions of the Apennines, Soracte, and toward Tivoli, the volcanic hills,—Frascati, Castel-gandolfo, and the plains, and, beyond all, the sea. Close at our feet lay the whole city of Rome in its length and breadth, with its mountain palaces, domes, etc. Not a breath of air was moving, and in the upper dome it was (as they say) like being in a hothouse. When we had looked enough at these things, we went down, and they opened for us the doors in the cornices of the dome, the tympanum, and the nave. There is a passage all round, and from above you can take a view of the whole church and of its several parts. As we stood on the cornices of the tympanum, we saw beneath us the Pope, passing to his midday devotions. Nothing, therefore, was wanting to make our view of St. Peter’s perfect. We at last descended to the area, and took, in a neighbouring hotel, a cheerful but frugal meal, and then set off for St. Cecilia’s…”