St. Petersburg, Fla. — Flying down I-75 on cruise control to South Florida, it's easy to bypass the Sunshine Skyway exit. "Next trip, we'll stop at the Salvador Dali Museum," we'd say. That went on for seven years.

'Vatican Splendors'

Courtesy of Florida International Museum (ENLARGE)

One of the 'Vatican Splendors' exhibits is painting the Sistine Chapel, a recreated environment that takes visitors onto the scaffolding near the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to explore how Michelangelo painted his famous frescoes.

Philippe Halsman (ENLARGE)

Salvador Dali with his signature pointy moustache and staring bug eyes taken by photographer Philippe Halsman.

RELATED LINKS: • More photos of the Vatican exhibit • More photos from the Dali museum • Southeastern festivals through March • More Southeastern travel ideas

• The "Face of Christ With Thorns" painted by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri in the 17th century depicts a Jesus whose eyes convey his suffering.

• The exhibit on the "Room of Tears," where newly elected popes go to meditate and change into their papal vestments conveys to visitors a sense of the responsibility the leaders of the church must feel, and their utter isolation as they prepare to assume their important role.

• The simple compass of Michelangelo Buonarroti makes you appreciate that his master artistry wasn't hampered by crude tools.

• A reproduction of the Sistine Chapel gives those who've not visited the Vatican a better idea of the scale of the massive frescos, and how physically and emotionally draining the project would have been.

Dali museum

The Salvador Dali Museum has two things in common with "Vatican Splendors," other than their St. Petersburg location: Dali was a Roman Catholic and his artwork sometimes reflected religious themes.

Beyond that, let's just say Dali was not a traditionalist in most aspects of his life. The museum houses the most comprehensive collection of original Dali artwork in the world, including 96 oil paintings, 100 watercolors and drawings, 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures and art objects and an archival library. Some 210,000 people visit annually.

Dali's surrealist art is fascinating and disturbing. Through June 1, a special traveling exhibit, "Dali & Film," gives visitors a fuller insight into this complex artist. The exhibit, organized by the Tate Modern in London, pulls together more than 100 works from collections in Europe and America, along with films, film scripts, photographs and drawings. You'll see Dali in movie clips, the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" that uses Dali's ideas and images, and "Destino," a short animated feature that Dali worked on with Walt Disney in the 1940s.

As part of the traveling exhibit, you'll also see the painting most people associate with Dali, the melting clocks from "The Persistence of Memory" (1931). The painting is owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it's only the second time the work has been displayed at the Dali museum. You can also see 1954's "The Disinegration of the Persistence of Memory," which is owned by the St. Petersburg museum.

A recent Dali museum acquisition, in 2005, is "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln." Who can know how he conceived and executed two masterpieces on one canvas?

Don't do what we did and leave too little time to fully see "Vatican Splendors" and the Dali museum. Spend the night in St. Pete, take in the traveling exhibit one day and the Dali the next. As a bonus, you'll find Clearwater/St. Pete's beaches are as beautiful as any of those calling you farther south.

IF YOU GO

About the museums

Florida International Museum, 244 2nd Ave. N., St Petersburg, FL 33701, has hosted a number of national and international exhibits and is the first stop for "Vatican Splendors from Saint Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Museums and the Swiss Guard." Reservations for timed tickets are recommended. Purchase at the Museum box office in person, call the box office at 727-341-7912 or buy through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com or 727-898-2100.

Groups of 15 or more should call 727-341-7918. Tickets are $20 ages 13-61, $13 ages 6-12, $17 seniors 62 and older, $15 military (with ID); and $13, members/volunteers. Audio tours are $5. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; noon-6 p.m. Sundays. The box office closes at 5 p.m. Starting March 26, the museum will be open until 9 p.m. Wednesdays; during the last two weeks of the exhibit, hours will be 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Estimated viewing time is 90 minutes. Information: 727-341-7900, www.floridamuseum.org
, www.vaticansplendors.com

Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Friday, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Saturday, and noon-5:30 p.m. Sunday. Docents lead free hour-long tours or take in the museum at your own pace.

Admission $15 adults, $13.50 senior citizens age 65 or older and military and police, $10 students ages 10 and older, $4 children ages 5-9, free for ages 4 and under; admission 5-8 p.m. Thursdays is $5. Discounted rates for groups of 10 or more. Dalifest is 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday with free outdoor activities and six bands; gallery admission is reduced to $7 all day, with children under age 12 free. 1-800-442-3254, www.salvadordalimuseum.org.

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