(Last Updated on Apr 6, 2024)

How large does a place need to be to be called a country? Well, apparently, size doesn’t matter when it comes to that decision. It is a far more complicated affair to define what a country is – we’ll probably not get into that in this blog. But what we will explore are 3 of the smallest countries in the world. We will try to understand a bit about how they came into existence and what life is like there. This is part 1 of my travels to these countries.

Do you know about Bengaluru’s Ulsoor Lake? It has an area of about 50 hectares and lies right in the middle of the city. At any point on the banks of it, you can clearly see every other part of the lake – so, it’s not too big. Can an entire country fit into Ulsoor lake?

The answer is Yes! We’re talking about Vatican City – the smallest country in the world.

But how did this come to be? Time for a short history of the smallest country in the world.

The Vatican City is a country that is under the ownership and authority of the Holy See – the administration of the Pope. The Pope used to control a large part of the current Italy – what used to be called the Papal States. But when Italy unified as a single country, the Pope lost his power – but he was still fighting to get into the country’s politics. Mussolini agreed to sign the Lateran treaty so that they could each focus on their own stuff and move on with life. The Vatican was established in 1929 and Italy agreed to give away this piece of land.

Now that we know why the country exists, let’s dive right into the travelogue:

We started our road trip across Europe from Rome, the capital of Italy. After exploring the Colosseum and a few other prominent sights, we went to Vatican City. You don’t need a separate visa to enter Vatican City – the visa that got you into Italy will suffice!

As we got closer to it, we could see its tall walls. It was fascinating to think that the entire country was contained within these walls!

We stopped near the entrance of the Musei Vaticani. All the tourist groups were given earphones with radio receivers. I assumed it would be like what we see in Indian museums with audio guides at each exhibit. However, as I tuned to the channel specified by our guide, I could hear her speaking. I checked out the other channels and to my amusement, found that there were other guides around us speaking in Spanish, Italian and English. 

We entered the Musei Vaticani and after the security check, went straight to the garden in the middle. There were big signboards with artwork placed in the garden. Our guide told us that she wasn’t allowed to speak inside the Sistine Chapel and all the details would be explained here itself.

We started by walking into the hallway leading to the Chapel. We were about to see some really famous paintings by Michelangelo. We stepped into the first hall which had sculptures – each depicting a story. There wasn’t too much time to dwell on them as the crowd swept through and we had to keep walking. The next hall had tapestries and once again, each said a story of its own. The ceilings had paintings on them as well. The next hall looked amazing! The ceilings glowed in yellow and gold with thousands of paintings. The walls had paintings of Italian maps showing different points in the history of the country. 

We then walked towards the Sistine Chapel. There were signs saying that no one was supposed to speak inside the holy Chapel and photography was prohibited. We entered to behold the beautiful paintings inside – it was marvelous! As I looked up at the ceiling, I saw the legendary painting of God creating Adam. It looked flawless along with all the other paintings. We spent some time digesting the brilliance of the artwork in this hall. 

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After this, we stepped out into the courtyard. This place looked exactly like some part of the outside courtyards of Harry Potter with massive pillars, statues and everything.

We walked on to realize that we had landed right in front of the biggest church in the world – St. Peter’s Basilica! It was enormous! We saw the balcony where the Pope would come out and address the crowd. The pillars were broader than any I’ve seen before.

Our guide showed us the residence of the Pope which was a building right next to the Basilica.

Completed in the year 1615, the architecture was Renaissance style with multiple bays and a huge central dome. Michelangelo’s works couldn’t be missed here as well with the Pieta – a marble sculpture of Mary holding her son Jesus after his crucifixion – right after the entrance. The aisles were decorated with many sculptures and statues. We saw the tomb of Pope John Paul II – the third longest serving Pope and the one we had seen while we were growing up. At the centre, there were four twisted bronze pillars above the altar and below the dome – it was called Bernini’s baldacchino. The central dome was beautiful – our guide told us that Michelangelo played a pivotal role here as well – we’d seen his brilliance as an artist, a sculptor and now as an architect. 

We saw openings in the floor which were air vents for the crypt below. One sculpture that quite stood out was the tomb of Pope Alexander which had an ornate entrance from the aisle and had a skeleton holding out an hour-glass to the kneeling Pope. 

I could barely hear our guide on the earphone which meant she had moved out with the rest of the group – I rushed out to avoid being left behind. We walked out past the statues of St.Peter (who almost always held a key in his hand) and St.Paul (who held a sword) to the fountain.

An obelisk stood right in the middle of the courtyard with hieroglyphs running all around it – little did I know at this point that I’d be encountering the cousins of this very obelisk in different parts of the world! It was an amazing view. 

We then walked back to the bus terminal where our bus was waiting. We had a quick lunch at the same restaurant as the previous day and then proceeded to our next destination – Arezzo. Goodbye Vatican City!

Next time, we will visit yet another small country (all three are among the 6 smallest in the world). Can you guess which is next – leave a comment below!

Check out Part 2 of this series here.

Part 3 is available here.

Check out the complete archive of all our travel blogs here.

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