Vatican Museum, Day 1

Monday, March 13, at 7:45 am, I wove my way through the tour groups trudging uphill on the Viale Vaticano to a side door, a break in the massive stone walls that encircle Vatican City and the official exit of the Vatican Museums.
Masses of hopeful tour attendees, lured by the promise to ‘skip the line,’  shuffled forward between metal barricades that aimed their advance back and forth, like the lines at TSA.  As I edged through the sluggish line past the touts and the Vatican ushers,  I considered my chances of squeezing through the crush at the front. Realizing it would be like wading in the Okefenokee, I hopped over the metal barrier instead. Armed with my happy experiences at the Louvre and Hermitage, I walked up to a guard and asked, “Dove exit door?” He pointed to the very entrance the hundreds already in the queue and more streaming up the hill were aimed toward. Resigned to turning back to the end of the line, I said, “I am a patron.”
“Right this way,” said the guard, “straight through that door.”
He didn’t have to say it twice. I bounded up the steps feeling like Jack standing on the railing of the Titanic’s bow. I’m Queen of the world!
I swooped inside, was greeted by a cordial gentleman who already knew my name, sent through the Patron relations department. He checked my ID, issued my pass and I headed to security, which was exactly like the TSA, without the line. After a brief pause at the window reserved for special guests to pick up my gratis ticket, I ditched the escalator for the spiral ramp. I cantered up past displays of model ships and boats, and paddles arranged upright on the wall like so many spears. I  nabbed an audio guide. Moments later it was just me, and Sekhmet, the lion- headed god of Egypt.
Here’s a brief account of my first day. Statuary of the Pio Clementino rooms brilliant, the Attrio de Quattro Carazze courtyard everything they say. Cave Canem!I loved the black and white mosaic of the crow and hare.  Every bearded male reminds me of Robert.Sadly, the maps are inadequate, more like a guide to subway stops than anything I’m accustomed to. Two lines, one the fast track to the Sistine Chapel, the other a slightly more scenic route, have dots along the way that mark the order of the individual museums. It offers zero information on how many rooms, how they are laid out, and what you might expect to see there. I am going to be making my own map.
After an hour, I asked directions to the Museo Chiaramonti’s long hall of marble statuary and guards cheerfully directed me the wrong way. One moment there was a reasonable ebb and flow of visitors, the next thing I knew I was sucked into the relentless throng of the Galleria della Carte Geografiche. Elaborate maps, cartography of the ‘Here There Be Dragons’ style, lined the walls, truly sumptuous painting glowed overhead. It’s all for naught. The mob marches on.
It’s just like the packed, shuffling masses in Russia’s Catherine Palace. You’re caught in a heel-toe shuffling snake, one 30+ person clog of a tour group following the next. It’s inexorable. One way, no pausing, no turning back, tour group after tour group after tour group. Arms waving cell phones like some kind of demented sea anemone. Here’s the dream versus the reality.

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There are few opportunities to slip away, but the rooms of modern art, where almost no one lingers, are your best bet. A few of the side rooms are virtually abandoned, including one with a small Van Gogh of the sorrowing virgin and her son.

Even better, though most of the modern collection was not to my taste, the ceilings were still glorious. There were the additional consolations of wide wooden benches, dim light, glorious walls, ceilings, and mosaic floors in rooms that were blessedly cool and virtually abandoned.
I scrambled through the Sistine Chapel scrimmage like Walter Payton, and headed out the right-hand exit door. I wanted to visit St Peter’s Basilica before I took myself to a late lunch.
Like the museum, it was packed with paintings and sculptures everywhere you looked. Unlike the museum, entry was free and it effortlessly absorbed the hordes. By some architectural alchemy of light and space,  it transformed a heaving mob into a decorous congregation.
I took a moment for prayer and felt the mantle of spiritual history settle on my shoulders. I drifted around, soaking in the atmosphere of calm, and resting my eyes on the spaciousness made possible by grand scale.It was the ideal antidote.
I stood on the very round marble slab where Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day.
I glimpsed a Swiss guard in his blue and yellow striped Renaissance uniform, like a blink from the door of a time machine.
I examined the bronze doors with new appreciation now that I’m a humble metal worker.
I breathed the free air of Saint Peter’s Square.
I bought stamps and can’t wait to mail postcards from here. Assuming sketches that include nudity are not an issue. I’ll ask.
Lunch was tasty enough. I tried Ragno D’Oro, Via Silla, 26. Fried artichoke, pasta, tiramisu, my usual trio. The server was cordial and I would have come back but the owner scolded me for drawing a postcard at the table. Not the place for me.
I’d walked 3.8 miles inside the museum, every centimeter drenched in glorious color and pattern and much it the work of genius. I’ll be back tomorrow.