2014 in Vatican City

On August 17, 2014, virtually right after hopping off the flight from Toronto, the Europe bus tour took us into the heart of Rome. While seeing the sights with severe jet lag, we made a stop into Vatican City (Italian: Città del Vaticano), resulting in the visit of my 9th unique country:

This made it my:

• 3rd European country
  • after UK and Italy
• 1st micro-state (the smallest!)

For a country the size of some North American properties, Vatican City still boasted a post office, a radio station and even the world's shortest railway!

Visit

For much of the visit, the tour group had us enter the world's smallest country from the east side, at Saint Peter's Square (Italian: Pizza San Pietro). We would see its towering Obelisk and the main Saint Peter's Basilica. However, there wasn't enough time to visit the Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina) where we could see that iconic painted ceiling.

At the time of this visit, Argentina-born Francis was Pope of the Catholic Church. He had started his papacy quite recently in 2013.