Vatican City

Trip to Italy - Journal Entry #2 - September 19, 2009 - 9:25 pm

What a long but wonderful day we had! We settled into our hotel - the Hotel Due Torri - and napped for a couple of hours (which was an excellent idea of the hotel receptionist). After our naps, we felt relatively refreshed and headed out to our first tourist destination -- Vatican City.

The plan had been to tour the area ourselves, but we got hustled into a tour group. It was expensive but worth every euro. We learned so much -- and so much more than we would have absorbed on our own.

The tour group took us around St. Peter's Square, into the Basilica and to the Vatican Museum. Our primary destination was the Sistine Chapel, which is about a mile from the Museum entrance. To get there, we went through several sculpture halls and courtyards and then through the tapestry hall and the map (frescos) hall. The most interesting tapestry was one where Jesus' eyes constantly followed you as you walked by the tapestry's 30 foot length. In that same tapestry, there was a man's boot that, again, as you walked by, from any angle looked like it was walking towards you!

I think the Vatican has more sculpture than any other place on earth. What was really neat about the sculpture was that we saw Second and Third century pieces that were the inspiration for Michaelangelo and other Renaissance artists. For example, we saw the torso, the raised arm and the face (all on different pieces) that Michaelangelo used in several of his works, including the figure of Jesus in The Last Judgment on the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel.

Not surprisingly, the climax of the tour was the Sistine Chapel. It was a bit of a disappointment -- at first. The room was jammed full of tourists (very uncomfortable) and rather dark. Nonetheless, the frescos in this room are unbelievable and we had been well instructed by our guide about what to look for. [There is no talking while in the Chapel.] And better yet, we managed to snag seats in the single row of benches that line the outer walls of the room. We then spent 15 minutes just staring. It is a stunning room. And there is entirely too much going on to take it all in. But we tried. And when our time was up, we queued up near the exit door and waited our turn (with dozens of other tourists) to exit the room.

Our next stop was St. Peter's Basilica. It, too, is incredibly impressive. A huge bronze altar dominates the center of the church, and many sculptured pieces are lined around the outer edges. This may very well be one of the largest churches in the world. There are even lines on the floor to denote where the outer walls of other large churches would fit within St. Peter's Basilica.

One of the main attractions within the Basilica is Michaelangelo's Pieta which, sadly, is behind glass. About 30 years ago, some lunatic took an ax to the sculpture. The damage he caused was repaired, but the need to take extra measures to protect the Pieta seemed wise. As a result, we could not get very close.

What made our trip to Vatican City most enjoyable was our tour guide. She was excellent -- very knowledgeable. There was no question she could not answer. Her English was excellent as well, but occasionally she misspoke idioms in funny ways. Once she referred to

someone trying to "be in one place twice." What she meant to say was that someone was trying to "be in two places at one time." It was a cute mistake!

Our last stop in Vatican City was the post office. We bought stamps and wrote and posted four post cards right there. Here is a picture of Dad and Chris in the Vatican post office. Dad is addressing a post card while Chris checks out our map.

As we left Vatican City (we'd been there 4 hours), we decided to head to the Piazza Navona. Chris is good with street maps and he got us there. Again, it was packed with tourists, but we found seats at a cafe in the Piaza and enjoyed some refreshing beverages. What a fun place the Piazza Navona is (pictured below)! There are lots of artists selling their work, and there are usually a few live sculptures posing near the one of the two fountains. They're very interesting -- a little spooky -- but pretty clever.

We then headed back to the hotel where we got a dinner

recommendation from the receptionist. Dinners are late in Rome. We got a reservation for the first seating (at 7:30 pm) at a restaurant called La Campana. It was just around the corner from our hotel, which was perfect since we were all starting to feel pretty tired.

Dad and I enjoyed different veal dishes while Chris had pasta. The meal revivied us and we felt sufficiently energized to see one more site -- the Trevi Fountain. One of the most remarkable aspects of the Trevi Fountain is its size. It is crammed into a relatively small piazza. And there were people everywhere! But it was beautiful, and I'm glad we saw it at night. And we all made wishes and added our coins to the fountain.

And then we walked (or hobbled) back to the hotel to call it a day. This was a long but wonderful first day in Rome, and I suspect that we will all sleep well. As I conclude now, Dad and Chris are already sound asleep and snoring -- both of them! Goodness. And goodnight.