This story comes to you from Rome - well, The Vatican, which is where my family and I travelled to for a few nights on November 2005. We had a truly amazing time at this City.
In the third day, we finaly visit Vatican with the St Peter's Basilica as it's center.
Now, before you first enter St Peter's Basilica you have to pay a toll. The price varied....a small amount if you intended walking up 325 steps to the top of the dome, and a larger amount if you wanted to take the elevator instead. Naturally, we opted for the elevator.
take the elevator up and we can see the dome above us, the people down below, all the beautiful sculptures and paintings..... absolutely breathtaking in every possible way.
Anyway, we're done taking photos and we've all managed to start breathing normally again (when I said breathtaking, I meant it!), and my brother suddenly notices this sign saying "Cupola" and an arrow pointing towards a short flight of stairs. "If we go up those stairs we'll be on top of the dome and we can take some pretty awesome pictures from there of the whole of Rome," he exclaimed.
It was a bright idea, and it seemed a short flight of stairs, and so we started climbing up, a couple of guys slightly ahead of us.
The short flight of stairs rapidly ends and we come to a very tightly spiralling staircase. I'm starting to feel a bit dubious about this now, but my brother and parents push on, and so up I go too. Round and round and round it went, and the way it was built, you couldn't tell if there was an end to it, or there were just more stairs awaiting you. I overtook my parents and brother and still kept plodding on, hopeful that the end was near. Little did we know that this was just the beginning!
Up and up and up we went. We started perspiring, and my parents aren't exactly young. My legs started aching like crazy....and I must tell you that at this time of year, the temperatures were over 40C!
I called up to the guys ahead, "Excuse me....hey, are we nearing the end?"
"No speak English," one called back.
"Sh-"I started, about to curse, then stopped as I remembered where I was!
On and on we plodded. My parents had dropped back far behind and it was just my brother and I braving the storm. What felt like a 100 steps later, we had reached this platform that slanted pretty heavily to the right. I at once breathed a sigh of relief, thinking we were at the top and promptly sat down while my bro took out some photos from a barred window. Then we look further up and notice yet another spiral staircase! Oh no!!!
At this point, I was incredibly thirsty, hot, and my legs were killing me. There's no way I could climb anymore stairs! I wished I had joined a gym before I came here, I remember thinking!
So I was preparing to go back downstairs and look for my parents, when this officer comes up and gives me a stern look.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Uh, back down," I reply. "I can't climb anymore stairs!"
"No," he replied. "You need to go up. There is no way down here. There is not enough space for you to go down while a lot of people are coming up! Move on please."
I couldn't believe it! We found out later, my parents sat on the stairs until the officer allowed them to go back down.
Anyway, deciding not to complain, my bro and I continued on our trudge up the stairs.
This time it was 10 times worse.....the walls got narrower and narrower, the stairs got steeper and steeper, the winding got tighter and tighter and the slanting got more and more pronounced, all of this making you feel very giddy and claustrophobic....and still there was no end!!!
It suddenly dawned on me....as it should have ages ago...these were the 325 steps they were talking about!!! I was going to walk 325 steps or die trying! The latter certainly appealed to me especially from the lack of oxygen being delivered to my brain! I also thought, if this wasn't a ploy for restoration of faith, nothing else could be!
And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse....it did. The spirals twisted and formed the tiniest, narrowest set of stairs I'd ever seen.....so dangerously so that there was a thick long rope hanging down the centre for you to grip onto and help pull yourself up!
At this point I gave up. There was NO way I was gonna go up those stairs like a very unfit tarzan...especially if there were hundreds more to follow! So I just plonked myself on the stairs, doomed forever. My brother continued on quite mercilessly, ignoring the fact I had given up on ever getting out alive.
The guy behind me told me, fairly politely, to go on up, but I refused and probably took on the appearance of a gargoyle whose sleep had just been disturbed. He gave a scared look, jumped over me and continued.
I put my head down, saying silent goodbyes, when I was prodded quite rudely. I looked up, and the guy who had jumped over me was hovering around me like a worried hen. He gave a reassuring smile.
"It's ok," he said in broken english. "The end is near."
I thought he meant I was going to die soon and wondered if I really looked that bad, and then I realised he was talking about the flight of stairs.
My little angel then helped me up that rope (and yes, it was the worst impression of tarzan you've ever seen!), and then we reached the top......and I totally forgot about the stairs, the pain, the claustrophobia, the nausea, the lack of oxygen...everything....it was like being in a different land...in a totally different world. I felt like climbing on the railing and screaming at the top of my lungs "I'm the Queen of the World!!!"
There were a few others up there...those who had successfully mastered that climb, including my brother, all just standing there in silence....drinking in the beauty of the sky, the clouds, and the tremendous view.
I don't know how long we stood there for, but suddenly, the officer was standing before us and asking us to go towards the exit.
It was a long long climb down....nothing like the climb up....but ya know what, even though I'd never ever do The Cupola Climb again, it was so worth it and the sights I saw will remain with me for the rest of my life.
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