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Published: August 26th 2012
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St. Peter's Cathedral
On our way to our 3 hour tour. I was up at 8AM with anticipation of seeing my sister Laurie in person for the first time thirteen months. With little sleep, I showered and stood outside the Hotel Bolivar in anticipation. The problem is that I read her email incorrectly so I stood outside for almost two hours before she showed up in a taxi. I must have looked like a dog waiting for his master to return home after school.
After an overnight flight, she opted not to nap so we hit the streets of Rome, ready to see all that Rome had to offer.
The residents of Rome are helpful, but they don’t give you all the information when you ask for assistance. For instance, when you get on a public bus, you have to pay the machine on the bus and then validate your ticket. No one told us. Once we figured out what we were supposed to do, the machine on our bus was broken. Nine times out of ten they don’t check your “validated” tickets, but they will fine you if they catch you not playing by the rules. We took two free rides and no one questioned us... Maybe it was
the “deer in the headlights” look we had on our faces.
We had booked a three hour tour of The Vatican for the afternoon that Laurie arrived. We had the choice of a five hour or three hour tour. We chose the shorter one. I figured a five hour tour would be disturbing, seeing all the wealth they have accumulated when I am seeing so much poverty in Tanzania.
We met our private tour guide, Barbara and we were off through the hallways, courtyards, and galleries of the Vatican. We saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, frescos, tourists, and of course a couple of gift shops. I must admit, it was very impressive, but the excess was something that got to me... We walked up a hallway and on either side of us were two rooms that had so many sculptures in each of them. I swear it was like a Vatican Garage Sale.
The tour was great, but the Cistine Chapel and St. Patrick’s Cathedral were the icing on the cake. No pictures were supposed to be taken in the Cistine Chapel, and I was going to obey the rules until I saw hundreds of people
taking pictures. I took two on the sly and they didn’t turn out that great... God does get even.
We were free to take pictures in St. Peter’s, so I went nuts.
After the tour, we walked back to our hotel to get our bearings in the city. We were both exhausted so we stopped for gelato (a must when in Rome!) and then called it an early night.
We woke up on Sunday and hit the streets once again. Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain. Very impressive and busy. We managed to push ourselves to the fountain’s edge and get some photos. We rewarded ourselves with more gelato and then wandered over the The Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps are very impressive, but apparently became popular to the world when they were featured in the 1952 movie, “Three Girls From Rome”. We did the typical touristy stuff and then walked over to the Villa Medici. It is now home to museums and galleries. They have turned the grounds into parkland for the citizens of Rome. We wandered the grounds and came upon the Piazza del Popolo (piazza of The People). This is an impressive Square
where one guy was singing opera without a microphone and you could hear him perfectly.
From there we wandered to the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier at Vittoriano. What an incredible building in the middle of the city. The white marble was outstanding. We watched the changing of the guard and saw the eternal flame. Like the National Gallery in London (in January) we whipped through their museum in about 5 minutes flat.
Next on the list was the Colosseum. While we didn’t go in (line ups were too long), we wandered around the whole site and saw The Arch of Constantine.
The weather was hot & sunny and we couldn’t drink enough water. We stopped for lunch and then headed to the church, Saint Peter In Chains. Located not far from the Colosseum, the church is very non-descript and tucked away from the main streets.
At the altar of the church are the relics of the chains that bound Saint Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem. The Empress Eudoxia (wife of Emperor Valentinian III, who received them as a gift from her mother, Aelia Eudocia, consort to Valentinian II. They were then presented to
Pope Leo I. Aelia Eudocia had received these chains as a gift from Iuvenalis, bishop of Jerusalem. (Thank goodness for Wikipedia)
Also here, it the lesser known sculpture, “Moses” by Michelangelo. When you look at the sculpture, it looks like Moses has horns coming out of his head. As Wikipedia explains it,
"These horns represent "the radiance of the Lord", due to the similarity in the Hebrew words for "beams of light" and "horns". This kind of iconographic symbolism was common in early sacred art, and for an artist horns are easier to sculpt than rays of light." To me, they make him look evil.
We were running out of energy, so we wandered back through the city streets and had a rest. Once the sun went down we headed back to the Trevi Fountain to see it all lit up. Since we started our day with gelato, we decided to end our day the same way.
My apologies for the number of photos in this blog, but there was so much we covered. I promise, the following blogs won't have so many.
Next stop, Pisa and Florence!
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