Vatican City (The smallest country with the largest church in the world)

Vatican city is a landlocked sovereign city whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. From Rome city, we went through a tunnel into a small roundabout to a basement parking. From the parking area full of tour buses, we need to go through a long escalator down to the Vatican City. 

No need to go through immigration but we reached to another smallest country with the largest church in the world. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares with a population of about 1000 people. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent country in the world by both area and population.

Vatican city is wealthy enough to offer free toilets to tourists unlike other European countries like Italy, France etc. that need to pay EUD1-2(not very clean also). In fact, they are not allowed to accept tips also from the tourists as been advised by their government. The toilets are clean with good quality toilet paper and water usage.

Many tourists complained about paying the toilet fees especially the Malaysians grumbled what kinda mentality they're having, here in Europe  everything need to pay. No money, no talk just like China. Haha...In China, you have money everything can talk. 

For me, I'm kinda lucky as I only go to hotel toilets, the luxury ones with luxury toiletries but I never like to take pictures of toilets so I can't show you much about it.The one I liked most is in Germany, very luxury and high class toilet esp. those luxury boutique hotels. I asked for permission and they usually lead me the way to it. And the Germans speak good English so there's no problem with the communication. 

The tour guide also told us that Vatican City is a rich country with sufficient donations coming from the worshippers, sponsors from companies and Christian associations, largely from the South America to govern their own country.  

It was a long queue, full of tourists who came to visit the church and I don’t like to queue up to visit a place. But while the tour guide was doing her duty queuing up for all of us,  we were given the chance to take pictures of the huge church from every angle we can catch. 

We make full use of the space and time for the perfect pictures but alas, it was too huge that most of us really can’t snap the whole building unless you stand far, far away from that building and focus from there. You need a pro camera to do that.    

We even stopped the Polizia(police) car to snap some candid photos and by the time we had enough pictures, we can go in already. That’s good enough for tour arrangement, that’s what I like about going holiday with a group tour where we don’t have to queue up to go into a museum or church for a visit.

Just like my last Paris Eiffel Tower visit, it was such a long queue and very slow moving queue just to go up the Eiffel Tower to watch the panoramic views. I told the tour guide if we have to queue up I gave it a go but thank God, he told me we don’t have to queue up as we can go through the VIP lane, straight up to the lift and went up in a few minutes. 

St Peter's Basilica is famous as the Pope presides at a number of services throughout the year, drawing audiences of 15,000 to over 80,000 people. St Peter's has many strong historical associations, with the Early Christian church, the papacy, the Counter-reformation and with numerous artists like Michelangelo. 

In terms of architecture work , it is regarded as the greatest building of its age which I was so amazed by its beauty from outside interior to the inside beauty of this church. The picture above I got to catch the father on duty changing the candles just beside me. This is the centre of the holy church I stop by for many pictures.

Usually Rambo was not interested to visit churches like me, usually I would take the time to read and learn the story behind it but this time, he enjoyed visiting every pit stop that I stopped to take pictures of this church. 

For the 1^st time ever, he enjoyed taking pictures of me in the church. He also think it’s worth to visit this amazing grace(reminds me of the lovely song) of a beautiful church. He said something different about this church from other churches we had visited over the years. 

I cannot describe much about it or show all the photos I had taken at this church but I fully recommended it to those who love taking pictures, to visit Vatican City yourself or come for prayers esp. for the Christians as it's one of the most beautiful church I have ever seen.

Every year, about 4 million people from around the world come to Rome just to visit the Vatican City. I'm part of the 11,018(Day 2) of the 2013 year to begin with and I'm totally awed by the Vatican City!