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Podcasts
Rome Audio City Guide
by Tim Richards
Rome’s best-known attractions, the Colosseum, Forum, St Peter’s and the Spanish Steps but also hidden attractions of hearing Gregorian Chant in a monastery, visiting Rome’s finest food shop, Castroni, and join a walking tour of fountains. 36m 3s. [...]
File size: 8.11 MB
£ 5.00
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St Peter’s Basilica
recommended by
Sue Dobson
by courtesy of APT - Rome
by courtesy of APT - Rome
Nothing can prepare you for the sheer size and scale of St Peter’s Square and Basilica. As you walk through Bernini’s piazza with its encompassing colonnaded ‘arms’ and enter the sumptuous basilica, it’s hard to take it all in.
Under Michelangelo’s majestic dome (136.5m/448ft) stands Bernini’s extravagant Baroque altar canopy of gilded bronze, 20m (66ft) high, looking down over a nave that stretches for 218m (715ft). Yet for all the grandeur, perhaps what stays in your mind longest is Michelangelo’s Pietà, now enclosed behind glass. Created when he was just 25, it is arguably the most moving piece of sculpture in the world.
To visit the dome: a lift takes you much of the way but there are still 330 steps to climb to reach the top!
Contact tel: +39 06 6988 3712, e-mail:
Useful links
Vatican - Home Page
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