37 Days Across Europe · Day 15 of 37 · Vatican City & Rome Easter weekend. The world's smallest country, the world's greatest museum, and the mild chaos of arriving at precisely the wrong time. Still completely worth it. Cortile della Pigna, Vatican Museums. The giant first-century bronze pine cone — Pigna — in the courtyard of the Vatican Museums, housed in a Renaissance hemispherical niche. A lion at the base of the stairs. A completely improbable sky. This is Rome est

37 Days Across Europe · Day 14 of 37 · Rome, Italy A city where you turn a corner and find two thousand years of history stacked on top of each other — and the Spanish Steps are somehow still full of people checking their phones. Rome, from the rooftops. The view from the upper levels of the city's centre — terracotta tiles, rooftop gardens, scaffolding, domes. Michelangelo's St Peter's visible in the distance. The Rome that exists above street level is a different city