The Tomb of St. Peter

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Our Second day in Roma

Saturday was another busy day in Rome. Our first stop was St. Peter's Basilica which was amazing! It is four football fields long and there is gold and marble everywhere. It was really breathtaking. Then we payed five euros to climb over 500 stairs to the top of the dome. The first stop along the way was the inside of the dome looking down on the altar. My favorite part about this were the mosaics up there. From the floor, this artwork looks like painting but when you are in the dome, you can see that they are actually composed of millions of tiny tiles that are really intricate. I can't imagine how it was done. Then, we climbed up slanting, winding stairs (because we were inside the dome) to the circular platform at the top where the air was cool and breezy and there was a great view of Rome. It was a very rewarding experience after climbing all those stairs.

Next, we took a siesta and went back to our apartment to nap. Later that day, we had a tour of St. Peter's grave which is beneath the basilica. It's interesting how churches were built on top of ruins which were built on top of older ruins. In this case, St. Peter was buried in a modest grave many, many years ago at that spot. A small altar was built on top of St. Peter's tomb to commerate him and was built into a hillside. As years went by, many people chose to be buried near St. Peter and there were tons of graves in a circular pattern around his as everyone tried to be close to him. Well, long story short, the hill was leveled in order to make the current basilica and everything was built on top of other things and so forth. They have since excavated beneath the church and we saw the place where St. Peter's tomb would have been. It was very moving and a powerful experience to be so close to such a revered place.

After that, we went to Castle St. Angelo which is right down the street from St. Peter's square. It's where Popes would go during battles to stay protected. There wasn't anything really cool about the castle but it was neat to see the immensity of it and to imagine how it would have been used.

We ate dinner near the forum and saw the ruins, the forum, and the Colesseum at night, all lit up. Just like all the ancient structures, these were huge as well! There were a lot of people out and about around the Colesseum. We were exhausted from a long day so we went home and went right to bed! The next day would prove equally taxing.

Italian 101:

grazie = thank you
prego = your welcome
Ciao! = hello and goodbye 😊
Quanto costa? = How much does it cost?

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