Eight-thirty this morning saw the relentless tourist on the banks of the Tiber approaching the Vatican again, hopefully early enough to beat the worst of the crowds.

The relentless tourist

Destination Vatican

At St Peters, there was no line; it couldn't have been simpler to enter one of the World's most famous buildings, fifteen minutes after leaving my hotel. I forget exactly how many football fields would fit inside St Peters, but it somehow seemed even more vast inside than out.

The vastness of St Peters

Despite the early centuries of redesign, it feels like an unusually harmonious whole. There is an immensity of detail everywhere, especially on the ceilings, but the ceilings are so far away, that the eyes don't get bound up in the details. There are many enormous statues and monuments, but they seem in appropriate scale for the size of the building. Particularly beautiful are the many small steeples (there is, I'm sure, a more correct term for the architectual feature I'm trying to describe) that climb up out of the centers of the domes, lined with windows, letting the flight flood into their ornate interiors, and filter down to illuminate parts of the ceilings of the domes.

The ornate ceilings, and one of the steeples that rise up from the center of each dome

A massive statue

I spent an hour walking through the massive interior; I have to say it was probably the highlight of my stay in Rome so far. To look down the length of the basilica and see distant figures suddenly illuminated by the sun's dusty rays makes you feel like you're seeing something epic ... biblical.

Although I took both my cameras with me, each have their limitations, due to slight defects, and there are certain situations when neither will produce a good photo - the Kodak won't, now, take sharp inside photos, except under unusual conditions. The Canon, on the other hand, takes great inside photos, but the flash- control button doesn't work, and there is no control over the aperture or exposure so, in cases where, as at the altar, you're not allowed to use a flash, I'm helpless.

Outside again, I joined a short line to take the elevator up the dome. I was amused by the tickets which were explicitly described as "round-trip". I was reassured - I didn't fancy the idea of a one-way trip up the dome.

Italians seem generally well-mannered and extremely friendly. You can never say "grazie" without hearing "prego" in return, for example. But sometimes they can be a bit too talkative for my taste. If you come across a couple of Italian housewives talking in a narrow alley, you almost have to cover your ears. And they they tend to accost other people when they're in groups; like with the group in my elevator ride. First they tried to get something out of the nun who was standing next to me, but gave up when they realized that her Japanese appearance made it likely her tongue was Japanese too. So then they set about me: they could use sign language on me, you see; all the way up in the elevator, their hand gestures, indicating great height, kept them all very amused.

Half way up the dome - as far as you can get with the elevator. This photo shows one of those steeples that come out of the centers of the domes.

After the elevator ride, you start climbing up inside the dome itself. After a few sets of stairs you reach the viewing balcony set around the base of the cuppola, and look down on the people far below.

Looking down from the base of the cuppola

My guidebook describes the dome as being Michelangelo's, so I guess he must have been a great architect too: because once you start climbing up to the top, you ascend through increasingly narrow and torturous staircases between the outer and inner domes, and you have to start bending sideways as the curvature of the dome takes the walls with it. It's rather a difficult ascent; I was in the midst of a group of mostly middle-aged Germans, and we were all out of breath and sweating hard when we finally glimpsed the whitening of the shadows that meant we'd reached open-air finally. But the view was worth the climb!

Climbing up the last stages between the outer and inner domes.

Resting at the top, after the climb.

A view from the top towards Piazza S Pietro

It's truly wonderful to have nothing to do - to be here for a relaxed six or seven days so that I don't have to rush if I want to see things, to have no worries, and the freedom to wander. So I spent a mostly idle afternoon sipping cappucino near the Parthenon, reading the newspaper and catching up with world events, and strolling slowly through the streets, feeling lighter than air. It helps that I continue to feel, health-wise and energy-wise, better than ever. I think that maybe, for my health, I should go on permanent vacation :)

I read in the Tribune that on July 8th, World Pride 2000 will take place here. Jeez, little did I know! In fact, apparently this is World Pride week here in Rome. So where are all the gay people? I wonder if it's been a complete flop. The Tribune did say something about the predictably nasty response from the Vatican, the ultimate killjoy institution. To find out more, I stopped by the Netgate, an Internet-access point, and tracked down the official website for the event. It was pretty bare-bones; it told me, for example, that the parade would take place through the historic city-center, but didn't provide the route. At Time-Out magazine's online guide to gay Rome, there was absolutely no information about the event. Moreover it's overall description of what gay Rome offers was dissapointingly obssessed with sex. Oh well, maybe I'll just hang around the "historic city center" on Thursday and listen for shouts of "We're here, we're queer, we're fabulous" or whatever.