A Sprint Through Rome

On Friday October 10, 2008 I had a field trip for school to Rome. My Michelangelo art history class was going to see Michelangelo's major works that are still located in Rome. We went to the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, and the tomb of Pope Julius II. Eight of us departed the Perugia Central train station at 7:30am to go meet our teacher in Rome. She met us at the Rome Termini station and was already in a frantic state. She is an interesting lady to say the least; she is very high strung, so we students were very curious to see what she would be like on a trip. We started the day by going on the subway towards the Vatican City. We were very lucky to not have to wait in line for entrance! We got in right away and then headed toward the Sistine Chapel. To reach the chapel you have to walk the entire length of the Vatican Museums, which is contained in about a mile of buildings. There was so much to see, but we were rushed through; I didn't mind much, because I am going to go back to Rome with Amanda in December, so it was unfortunate, but I would have time later. Everything was going fine until I turned to take a picture and then turned back and my entire group was gone! It was like they had disappeared! I had a brief moment of panic because I was on a school trip and was supposed to be doing a lot that day and was afraid I would be lost in Rome all day by myself. I knew we were going to spend some time looking at the Sistine Chapel, so I hurried through the corridors toward the chapel barley looking at anything (but only for awhile until I calmed down). I realized I am lost, there is nothing I can do about it, and I should just take some time and at least glance at some stuff. So I slowed down, took some more pictures, and then when I reached the chapel, started to look for my group. I finally found them after walking around the chapel for about 15 minutes. My highstrung teacher was kind of in a panic. ;) The Sistine Chapel was amazing! The height of the ceiling is about 65 ft. so it is enormous! It is difficult to imagine anyone going up there to paint something as miraculous as what Michelangelo did!

We ate at the cafeteria in the Vatican for lunch, which I would not recommend because it is ridiculously expensive! They serve full course meals, not pizza or something cheaper. Go out to the street vendors if you are eating there, better yet, wait til you are away from Vatican City. We stopped at a gelato place called Old Bridge on our way to St. Peter's. It was delicious and was decently priced, so I would definately recommend that. At St. Peter's we had a few minutes to walk around the square before lining up to see the Pieta. The square is much larger than I expected! THe columns and statues are enormous and just overwhelming! When we lined up to enter the Basilica it was crazy! There were a lot of people and like the rest of Itlay there was no order/line to enter, it was just a massive group of people. You have to go through metal detectors as well, so it just makes everything more chaotic! I don't recommend going right after the lunch period; go during lunch time. The Pieta, a statue of the Virgin Mary holding a dying Christ, is what we went to see. Basically, it is perfect. There are some pictures, hopefully you can see for yourself, I just can't describe it any better than that. We then looked around St. Peter's for about 15 minutes (definately not long enough). The size of St. Peter's if overwhelming as well, I just never expected it to be that large!

After a rushed look at St. Peter's we hurried to the bus station to catch a ride to the tomb of Pope Julius II where Michelangelo carved the Moses. On our journey we caught short glimpses of the Tomb of the unknown soldier and the Colosseum. Again we just didn't have enough time to stop and properly look. The Moses was also greatly sculpted and was interesting to see. After about 10 minutes looking at it we had to rush to the train station so we wouldn't miss our train back to Perugia. Rome was very crowded, even for a weekday.

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