The Vatican Borders

The "pub discussion" last monday pushed me to do a little more work on borders.
I started to study the borders of the Vatican, by walking around.
It is quite handy to be able to circumnavigate a whole state in less than two hours... including the time to take pics! It is defnitely an interesting subject, which will deserve many more visits and much more time (shame that I am just moving house on the other side of Roma!!!):

1) there are borders that are routinely crossed by tourists (St peter Square, the Vatican Museum), therefore with very permeable "gates", crossed by people of all sort - with very long queues at times).

2) there are borders that are guarded, and open only for those who have permissions. These are the borders to the non-touristy parts of the State of the Vatican, mostly crossed by expensive cars, nuns and priests. And of course the Swiss Guards add interest to these borders.

3) there are long stretches of wall, with no openings, guarded by cameras. Nice houses on the "Italian side", and the Vatican Gardens above.

4) there are spaces by the walls used as parking lots, small gardens, dog areas

5) there are closed gates (with concrete slabs!)

6) there is even a train gate, a very large metal door. I wonder if they open and use it often

7) there are metal detectors in St peter Square, which make the colonnade look relly like a border (it used to be much more open before, but now, as everywhere else, they added lot of security)

And of course there are many different characters hanging around: the informal sellers of bags and glasses scattered all along the tourist areas... thousands of tourists ... nuns and priests... Swiss Guards... italian policemen... residents of the nice neighbourhoods adjacent the walls... and the pope of course.

Definitely lots of potential there. I guess I will have to explore the action happening in different places around the borders. Maybe I should try different styles to suit the different characters of the wall? And of course I better revise some history and urban planning books.

The slideshow contains all the zillions pics I took today, to give an idea of the borders. The strategy was to walk around and gain a sense of the borders. The pics are a bit souless as I did not spend much time to look at interesting actions and relationships. I guess I will have to shortlist some interesting spots and spend more time hanging around these.