Expecting the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica, David Whitley finds far more entertainment in pushy nuns and Pope Benedict cigarette lighters.
St Peter’s Basilica souvenir shop
You don’t want to mess with a pushy nun. Once they get the bit between their teeth, they’re difficult to shake off. And the ones manning the souvenir shop in St Peter’s Basilica are no exception. One poor chap has decided that, no, he doesn’t particularly want the fetching embroidery of Pope John Paul II, and is now undergoing the hard sell.
Perhaps motivated by profit margins or commission structures, the diminutive assistant suggests a few other artistic atrocities that may do the trick. Go get him tiger! Or should that perhaps be penguin?
Vatican City border controls
The Vatican City is, as any sovereign entity smaller than a square mile is bound to be, a rather weird place. There are no border controls – you just wander straight in from a fairly non-descript part of central Rome, through some pillars and bollards and into St Peter’s Square.
Once there, you see a large screen which is helpfully showing live footage of… St Peter’s Square. Extremely handy.
Most people are in lengthy queues to either get into the basilica or pretend to look at the other stuff in the Vatican museums before rushing to the Sistine Chapel.
Dress codes
Sprinkled amongst them are the fashion police, intent on not letting scruffy, promiscuous bums in. Shoulders and legs must be covered and, judging by the signs, men in blue singlets or comical Victorian-era bathing costumes are out of the question.
That the Vatican’s official guards are dressed in psychedelic stripy pyjamas and looking like court jesters seems a bit hypocritical. They’re not prepared to concede how silly they look, though, and requests for photographs are met with icy glares.
Vatican city post office
Just round the corner from the basilica is the Vatican’s post office, and it appears as though the tenacious nuns in the gift shop have been doing a fine job. Crammed inside are hundreds of postcard-wielding visitors, frantically scribbling away any old rubbish just so they can get a Vatican City stamp sent to their relatives.
But while the souvenirs in the Vatican itself are pretty bad – check out the superimposed picture of the Pope in a cloud, bestowing his blessing upon the square – the stakes are raised the moment you return to Rome.
Rome’s souvenir shops
Close by to the Vatican are a series of souvenir shops which, although not staffed by nuns, have plenty of nuns shopping within them. The goods on store are at a whole new level of comically ghastly, and it seems as though the average be-habited bargain hunter likes a variety of Pontiff-portraying memorabilia.
Amongst the acres of tea towels, Papal aprons and posters are some true gems. How about a small crystal with a tiny 3D image of JP2 inside, looking suitably benevolent? Or maybe a teacup holder, available in both John Paul and Benedict models?
The star attraction though, is the cigarette lighter. With Pappa Benedetto reaching to the heavens, it’s enough to make you believe that anyone lighting a ciggie with this piece of no-doubt-officially-sanctioned regalia will be spared from the ravages of cancer by divine intervention.
The good father clearly wishes us to chug away on twenty a day. Just so long as they’re Holy Smokes…
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