Many months before we left Canada, we had a plan to photograph the Momo Staircase in Vatican City. I already had a place in my living room picked out for the exact shot. Laura booked expensive private tours for us so we would be sure to see it while we were there. Pretty much our entire 5 hour tour had one goal: photograph the Momo Staircase. So you can imagine our dismay when the tour ended and we had not seen hide nor hair of it anywhere.
For a couple of days we were brave about it. “No regrets,” said Laura. “We got what we got,” I agreed. But inside we were both fairly devastated at the idea of coming all the way to Rome and not seeing this amazing architectural masterpiece. We began formulating a plan to go back and find this staircase. The biggest obstacle was the two hour waiting lines for those not on a tour. And the tour was clearly not the way to have time or freedom to find this darn staircase. On a tip from a tour guide, we hit up the entrance near the end of the day. And lo and behold, we were able to walk right in with no line ups, for a totally reasonable entrance fee! Step one - accomplished!
Now to find the staircase… oh look, it’s five feet from us. Step two - accomplished!
The other obstacle was how to get an empty staircase in our photo when there were hundreds of visitors streaming down it in a steady line. And not only were they walking down it, they were posing on it, throwing their arms out with pasted on cheesy grins and doing double peace signs for all the world to see. This was not the picture I had in my head.
We decided to wait it out. At some point, there would surely be a break in the foot traffic. Right?
Two hours. Two hours of waiting, praying for people to move along, thinking up ways to create a diversion, and silently cursing those lovely visitors under our breath. And after all that waiting, the best I managed to get is a shot with four people in it. That’s ok - I could work with that. Thanks to Photoshop, my image is now PEOPLE-FREE and ready to go on my living room wall. Step three - accomplished!
Despite the long, torturous, nail-biting wait, Laura and I both agreed - it was worth every second. That was by far the best two hours we have spent in Rome thus far.
Is it ironic that we paid $24 Can to get into the Vatican just to proceed directly to the EXIT where this staircase is located???
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