Finally, a full day of sightseeing. Today we decided to go to the Vatican-St Peter's, but the lines just to go through the security check were long, long - over an hour to get through. There seemed to be a lot of school tours around. The lines to get into the Vatican Museums were just as long. We decided we will try another day, and get there a bit earlier in the day next time. We want to spend a fair bit of time going thru the Museum in particular, although we know we will never be able to see it all. I think there are something like 900 rooms and over 16 miles of corridors to go through.
We decided instead to go to Castel Sant' Angelo instead. This is a building, that in the Ist century started life as a mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian and his family, with the last burial about 100 years after Hadrian's death. Over the centuries it grew, shifted and changed from a mausoleum, to fortress, to a castle, to it's current incarnation as a museum. It has been said that Michael the Archangel appeared on the top of the mausoleum in the late 590 AD, sheathing his sword, signaling the end of the plaque, thus the name Castel Saint Angelo.
It started out as a cylindrical shaped structure with a garden on the top. Towers and fortified wall were added. A Bastion was built. At one point a circular ramp was added that brings you up to the castle quarters. this ramp is wide enough that I could see a horse and cart going up it. When it was taken over by a Pope and became a castle, a covered fortified passage was built atop a wall, connecting the castle to the Vatican so the Pope could safely escape if needed. The papal treasury was also stored within this fortified structure. It also became a food storage area for times of siege. A more gruesome use of the building was as a prison, a place of torture and execution. It is said the heads of the executed were hung on the bridge leading to the castle as a warning to others.
I am having some camera woes right now, I will add them tomorrow when I solve my problem.
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