Tags
Cupola, Italy, postaweek2012, Rome, Stairway, travel, Vatican, Vatican City, weekly photo challenge
Going down one of the world’s most impressive (and dizzying) spiral staircases ~ the Scala de Bramante.
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Inside the cupola at The Vatican, the staircase gets smaller and smaller the further you go. You climb the stairs around and around inside the curving dome until you reach the cupola at the very top.
There are stairs from the depths of the Vatican ~ the excavated Roman cemetery and the Vatican Grottoes which hold the tombs of many popes ~ to its heights, where passage to the outdoor roof of the basilica offers a unique panorama of Rome and a close-up look at St. Peter’s smaller domes and statues.
Inside is a steep shoulder-width spiral staircase that is not for the faint of heart.
The reward for climbing 551 narrow, sweaty, funhouse steps?
Toni 7/24/12
This is awesome. I visited the Vatican in 1974!
Ah, something I was brave enough (and fit enough) to do in the 70′s! It was worth every terror-filled minute! M.
Wow, another place I want to go. Thanks for sharing, I truly had never seen this.
I would say that is worth the climb. It will take me a couple of years to get into shape to do it, but it is worth a shot.
if only the view could make me risk the claustrophobia. Most tllingly beauful shots
Oh! I have been there!
What a beautiful gallery if shots, and a wonderful take on the inside challenge!
Dan Brown showed us the depths of the Vatican in a movie of one of his books… I remember the scenes that showed where some popes are buried down there , but I don’t remember seeing the spiral stairway…. What an awesome adventure. Was Jim behind you taking pictures?
I’m not sure I’d want to do the 551 steps… but wow! What a beautiful staircase!
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