Vatican City is the smallest independent state, in both population and area, in the world. While it's been an official city state for less than 100 years, the Vatican enclave has been the seat of the Pope and the Catholic Church since the 1300's. Its government is basically a theocracy- the Pope is the elected supreme leader and then there are cardinals, etc. (I'm gonna level with you guys right now- a lot of what I know about the Catholic Church is coming from the Da Vinci Code).
The Vatican is pretty freaking rich though, especially considering that most of its income is from tourism and the sales from goods stamped with the Vatican seal. However, even the Vatican is feeling the wrath of the economic recession. While a few years ago, the state had a rather large budget surplus, in 2008 they listed a budget deficit of over 15 million euros. It is expected that this trend would only worsen in the years following due to the tightening of fund world round which would restrict tourism, and in that take away a large part of the Vatican's funding.
The well connected city state is far from bankruptcy though. While St. Peter's Basilica is a free cite to go into, the Cupola and the Vatican Museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel, is not. From looking at the lines we were privy to today, I'd say that the Vatican easily pulled in 1 million euros on admission. And we didn't even go into the souvenir shops or the numerous food places.
Comparing our adventures today to our experiences in Athens, one starts to wonder why the heck Greece isn't capitalizing on their ancient cites and tourism. While the Vatican has religion and pilgrimage to stand on when the tourism industry fails, Greece still has much older and, in my opinion, sometimes more interesting stuff. Sure, the Sistine Chapel was epic; but when you consider that the marble that composes most of the buildings on the Acropolis is found 7 kilometers away and was transported with technology not much more advanced than pushing and pulling...
Basically what I'm trying to say with this blog is that maybe it's not that Vatican City has more history or culture or cooler stuff to see. They just know better how to market themselves- that is what has helped them stay a float all these years (besides Catholicism...) and possibly what Athens and the rest of Greece lacks.
The Vatican is pretty freaking rich though, especially considering that most of its income is from tourism and the sales from goods stamped with the Vatican seal. However, even the Vatican is feeling the wrath of the economic recession. While a few years ago, the state had a rather large budget surplus, in 2008 they listed a budget deficit of over 15 million euros. It is expected that this trend would only worsen in the years following due to the tightening of fund world round which would restrict tourism, and in that take away a large part of the Vatican's funding.
The well connected city state is far from bankruptcy though. While St. Peter's Basilica is a free cite to go into, the Cupola and the Vatican Museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel, is not. From looking at the lines we were privy to today, I'd say that the Vatican easily pulled in 1 million euros on admission. And we didn't even go into the souvenir shops or the numerous food places.
Comparing our adventures today to our experiences in Athens, one starts to wonder why the heck Greece isn't capitalizing on their ancient cites and tourism. While the Vatican has religion and pilgrimage to stand on when the tourism industry fails, Greece still has much older and, in my opinion, sometimes more interesting stuff. Sure, the Sistine Chapel was epic; but when you consider that the marble that composes most of the buildings on the Acropolis is found 7 kilometers away and was transported with technology not much more advanced than pushing and pulling...
Basically what I'm trying to say with this blog is that maybe it's not that Vatican City has more history or culture or cooler stuff to see. They just know better how to market themselves- that is what has helped them stay a float all these years (besides Catholicism...) and possibly what Athens and the rest of Greece lacks.
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