10 Things You Don't Know About The World's Smallest Country

Including a bonus feature of my own bungling incompetence!

Vatican City. Photo by Alberico Bartoccini

Few things in life delight me more than a public recounting of my own failures.

Because I’m a roll-up-my-sleeves-and-get-down-to-business kind of gal, I’d like to start with a fun story of how in 2014, two weeks into my new life in Italy, I managed to circumnavigate, in heels, the two miles’ worth of medieval walls comprising the Vatican, which is the smallest country on Earth, twice.

Twice.

I was completely and hopelessly lost, stuck in a never-ending loop of cluelessness, without the language skills to ask for help, a SIM card to show me Google Maps, or even the wherewithal to stop and get my bearings. The later it got, the more panicky I became.

John, who had a jazz gig at a nearby hotel, was waiting for us there, and I knew he’d be worried. My thirteen-year-old daughter threw side-eye at me every time I said, “I’m sure it’s right up ahead.”

Onward we trudged, me painfully regretting the heels, my hair in a frizzy bird’s nest on top of my head. After four hours, I spotted a posh-looking hotel—although not John’s hotel—and thought, well, if I can get some Wi-Fi, maybe I can find out where we need to go.

We sat at the lobby bar with its burled walnut and brass appointments, trying not to look as sweaty and desperate as we felt. “I’m so thirsty,” my poor daughter moaned.

“Oh, honey,” I said. “Let me get you some water.” But I soon discovered there was no money in my wallet. Worse, I’d left my debit card at home.

Way to go, Mom. I was really, really batting this Italy thing out of the park.

Walls. Sooooo many walls. Photo by Alesan Aboafash.

After clawing around in the bottom of my purse, I found a couple of euros, enough to get my daughter a Pelligrino, which I eyed thirstily while she drank. “If I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to die,” my daughter said.

A woman sitting next to us who’d finished her hamburger, wadded up her napkin, grabbed her purse, and then exited the lobby. I waited a full two minutes before grabbing the uneaten potato chips off her plate. Am I proud of this? No. It’s a strange and surreal experience to sit in a very tony hotel lobby and steal food. But if I’m to be honest, I’d do a lot worse than that to feed my kids.

But how were we going to find John?

Staff in major Italian hotels usually speaks English. I asked everyone I could find where John’s hotel was, and everyone delicately shrugged their shoulders. “I’ve never heard of it,” the concierge admitted.

With Wi-Fi, I was able to call John, but John was busy playing the gig. Night had fallen, and I wasn’t keen on stumbling around in the dark. Yet he had no idea where we were. Our situation was getting worse by the minute. My sweet daughter was exhausted, hungry, and over it.

Then I thought: what about a cab?

It’s not actually possible to flag a cab in Rome. Cabs are only allowed to congregate in designated spots. Fortunately, hotels can call them, and as I waited outside with a mixture of relief and dread, hoping the driver spoke enough English for me to explain that I would have to locate my boyfriend before I could pay him, I had serious doubts about my chances for survival here. Of all the things I worried about before moving to Italy—money, money, and money—getting lost was the only thing I didn’t worry about, and damn, if it wasn’t going to kill us.

I gave the driver the name of John’s hotel.

“Where?” the driver asked.

We were doomed.

“Oh!” the driver exclaimed. “You mean the Priory!”

Dumbstruck, I listened to him explain that the hotel had rebranded itself with a new look, a new name. Tonight was their grand reopening. The name I’d been asking for wasn’t on any maps or any signs. My daughter and I had passed it twice, only we’d been looking for a hotel by a different name. And let me tell you, that is so Italian, it makes my fillings ache.

But the upside is, I can brag that I’ve circumnavigated an entire country twice. In heels. Not everybody can say that. So let me share a few fascinating facts about Vatican City that even some Italians don’t know.

1. Yes, Vatican City is actually a country, the smallest in the world, with a population of 453 people. About half the territory is gardens established during the Medieval Era. With 5 1/2 million visitors each year, it attracts more tourists than anywhere else in the world. When you stand in the middle of Saint Peter’s Square, you experience a prickling sensation of being observed, which is most likely true. Having said that, there are no obvious cameras.

2. There is an ATM with instructions in Latin. And you may think, seeing as how Italian is a rogue dialect of Latin, how hard could it be for a native Italian speaker to use it, but you would be wrong. No one can work that ATM. And since the Vatican has its own bank and prints its own euro, maybe that’s the point.

3. The Vaticani like their vino. An average Vatican resident consumes 54.26 liters of wine a year, giving this country the highest wine consumption rate per capita in the world.

4. In 2019, thousands of bones were discovered in two ossuaries beneath the city as part of an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of a teenage girl, Emanuela Orlandi, over three decades ago. Emanuela Orlandi was the daughter a prominent Vatican employee and lived within the walls of the holy city. She disappeared in the summer of 1983 while bicycling home from a music lesson in central Rome. Following an anonymous tip, investigators discovered these mysterious, bone-filled chambers and are hoping a DNA analysis will finally solve a painful and puzzling mystery that continues to grip Italy and has been attributed to mobsters, international terrorists, and the highest echelons of the Vatican.

   

   Missing, Emanuela Orlandi, poster from 1983

5. The economy of the country is supported by the sale of postage stamps, tourist mementos, the entry fee for museums, the sale of publications, etc. Vatican City has its own post office, telephone system, flag, national anthem, and also issues passports and license plates. Both Italian and Latin are the official languages.

   

   Vatican City mailbox. Photo by Bao Menglong

6. There are only two countries in the world that don’t have laws for divorce. One is the Philippines. The other is Vatican City.

7. Owing to its small size and the skewed nature of statistics themselves, Vatican City has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Keep in mind, these “crime statistics” are purse snatchings and pickpocketings. With that much tourism, it’s probably inevitable. Since Vatican City has only one judge and no modern prison, perpetrators are bundled off to Rome for sentencing.

8. There’s a cool secret passageway. Called the Passetto di Borgo, a half-mile-long elevated and covered passageway was constructed in 1277, linking the Vatican to Castel Sant’Angelo, a fortress on the banks of the Tiber River. During the Sack of Rome in 1527, Pope Clement VII used the Passetto di Borgo to escape.

9. Vatican City is actually a monarchy. The Pope is not only the leader of hundreds of millions of Catholics around the world, he is also the ruler of a country.

10. The Apostolic Palace has over 1,400 rooms. It comprises the Papal apartments, the Pope’s offices, and the Vatican Museums, which go on for nine miles. The collection doesn’t just include religious works, but the paintings of Pablo Picasso, Egyptian artifacts, Vincent Van Gogh, and so much more.

    

    One of a million beautiful rooms in the Apostolic Palace

Have you ever been to Vatican City? If so, I’d love to hear your impressions. Be sure to leave your comments below.