Advertisement
Published: July 21st 2009
Edit Blog Post
Lauren in front of Castel Sant' Angelo
The Castel is just across the Tiber on the Vatican side from Rome's city center. A left turn at the Castel puts the walker in a direct line-of-site to St., Peter's Square. Interesting, because Musolini spent a lot of money to make this walkway dramatic and stunning, but he pretty much failed. Try though they did, Rome has been completely unsuccessful at integrating the ancient with the modern in any way that makes visual sense. Visit to the Vatican. Alarm set by 8 but we were not really moving until 8:45. Tickets supposedly were for 11 and didn’t want to miss our slot. We emerged to a pleasantly cooler day which made for a much more pleasant walk than yesterday’s. Mid-way we seemed to be making good progress so stopped for coffee and pastries at a less touristy out of the way café. Excellent coffee again and as we sat at sidewalk tables we got a taste of what the guidebooks warned us about: friendly older Italians who love children! An older gentleman came by for his morning coffee and insisted on asking the children their names and ages while trying to teach them a little Italian. Completely charming and we discussed that anyone who did that in San Francisco would be immediately branded as a freak. We made it to the Tiber River and crossed right in front of the Castel Sant' Angelo. We need to look up what it is/its history but it’s an impressive building. Misunderstanding what our tickets were for, we headed to St. Peter's Square (incredible!) and then on into St. Peter’s Basilica (words are insufficient to describe!). We were prepared
Family in St. Peters Square
The sheer size of the square is amazing. Even with throngs of visitors, the center of the square seems almost empty. to meet the strict dress code with zip-on pant legs for the kids to transform their shorts into appropriately modest attire for the Basilica. John noted that one young man had appropriately covered his shoulders, but his “Amsterdam Red Light District” t-shirt was perhaps more in keeping with the letter of the law than its spirit. Entrance to the Basilica was free with relatively little waiting time required and was just remarkable. One particularly remarkable moment was after looking at what appeared to be a great painting for several minutes, realizing that it was actually a mosaic of tiny tiles. We exited the Basilica completely awestruck but also completely clueless as to how we were supposed to get to the Sistine chapel. Our ticket was for the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel and the entrance was more than 1 km away. We made a gelato stop, marred by the discovery of an errant fruit fly in Lauren’s gelato and then headed in. The Vatican museum contains an abundance of artifacts, in places collected in such tightly organized displays that it appears to be more of a storage area than a museum. We wound our way through room after room, all
Andrew in St Peter's Basilica
Gives a sense of the massive scale of the Basilica the while following signs that promised the Sistine chapel, which was, of course, the last stop on the trip. Unsurprisingly, it was quite crowded and the kids were pretty cooked but we managed to point out a few recognizable scenes and resolved to study pictures of Michelango’s ceiling with increased sense of the place. We stopped for a snack (muffins) and John enjoyed the fact that you can get a beer pretty much anywhere they sell food in Rome. Walked home for the now-traditional afternoon unwind, but today the cooler weather made our roof terrace quite inviting and we spent some time up there with our air-drying laundry. Dinner was again at a sidewalk café, this time in front of the Pantheon. Better food and how often do you get to eat right in front of a 2000 year-old building? Gelato at Piazza Navona. Andrew stopped to gawk at the seafood display outside a restaurant and was startled when the lobster in the display case moved. He was highly skeptical of our assertions that it was actually alive. Greatly enjoyed the cooler evening and then home. No alarm set for tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0238s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
mal
non-member comment
Still enjoying your trip. So glad you were able to set this up.