Back down to the ground level, we enter the main chamber of Saint Peter's basilica. Clearly the goal here was awe inspiring, and while it ruffles my feathers a little when religion uses tricks to try to get you to associate feelings of awe with their particular idea of god, it's still a pretty neat place.

The inside of Bernini's Canopy, the ebony canopy that covers the altar. My camera HATES taking pictures of things that are dark and shiny, so all of my pictures of the thing are blurry. If you want to see it in its entirety, try the Wiki commons photo.

The light comes in through the center of this giant piece, the golden rays presumably adding to the effect. Note the bit of the ebony box to the right.

And on up, to the grandeur of the celing - and more in-focus ebony to the right!

And on up... the central dome is just the largest of several domes in the Vatican. I like this one a lot more than the main dome, really.

Awesome... and creepy. That's the Catholics for ya! Here they have a mummy. And not some old Egyption guy, but one of their very own popes, still wearing his ring, although I suppose you're not expected to kiss it any more.

The part that continues to impress me the most, though, is the part they probably ripped off from the Romans - the stonework.

People finally cleared this walkway enough to get a good view of the tiles. These are the same tiles that we were looking down upon from the dome.

From grand to small... Eric's feet providing scale for this photo of the beautiful stones.