Reaching the Vatican
November 20, 2007
Here is the Y intersection I told you about going from the left side of the picture to the right.
We entered this intersection (coming from the left side of the picture) and weren't
sure how to define "straight." The building on the right side of
the above picture is the same building in the center of the picture below.
No matter what if we went to the left side of the building, or the right side along the river, we were going to have to cross the via in front of the tunnel and
all the traffic. Fortunately, there are stop lights with the red, yellow, and green
person figure to indicate which is the equivalent of Walk/Don't walk signs. However,
the green light for walk is short lived. You have to hurry.
We crossed in front of the tunnel. Don't be deceived. There are five lanes of traffic heading
into the tunnel. We went down the right side of the building.
A few minutes later, we were at another bridge and another big intersection.
We entered this picture from the left and were standing at the rounded corner.
Now which way do we go? We looked around to see if anything resembled the
Vatican or Vatican Plaza. Further down the river was a building with statues
of people on top. I couldn't, for the life of me, recall the facade of the Vatican.
There is a via name, at that intersetion, with "Vaticano" on it. Do we take that one?
There was an elderly gentleman who could see we were lost. He couldn't speak
English, but was very willing to help - bless his soul. We mentioned Vatican
and pointed to the via sign with "Vaticano." He shook his head very
strongly. Turns out the "Vaticano" via would take you further away from the
Vatican. I started pointing to other via signs and saying their names. He
was able to help us using via names. He pointed the way and said the via
names. We had to walk through the buildings that would take you to the upper left
corner of this picture.
As soon as we walked between those two buildings and were on that
big via, we only had to look left to see the Vatican.
(You suddenly hear sweet music playing with birds chirping in the
background against a very blue sky.) We were
very relieved to have found the Vatican. That big via is Via delle Conciliazione.
Back at the Y Intersection (top picture), had we walked down the road closer to the tunnel instead of the river, Via dei Penitenzieri,
it would have taken us directly to the plaza.
Go to page 16 - Going to the Vatican - Via Della Lungara . Go to page 18 - Vatican Plaza.
Go to page 16a - Going to the Vatican - Lungotevere Gianicolense.
Jump back 10 pages to Page 7 - The Coliseum.
Jump ahead 10 pages to Page 27 - The Spanish Steps.