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The April fools joke for today was played on ourselves as we set our alarm wrong and woke up much later than we had planned to. In my previous visit to Rome, I recall seeing huge lines for the Vatican museum and everyone we have talked to has advised us to go early. With this in mind, we headed out the door without breakfast and caught the 7 am bus to a nearby local train station. We took the train to Vatican station, which it turns out it not really that close to the Vatican and even further from the Vatican museums. We weren't sure what sort of lines we would encounter, so we rushed along following the signs and asking for directions as we went. There was quite a crowd at St. Peter's square, as today (unknown to us) is the day the Pope has an audience. After a long walk around the gates of the Vatican city, we reached the museum entrance.
Surprisingly, at 8 am there was only a few people in line for tickets and by 8:30 we were in the museum. The series of rooms that make up the museum end up at the Sistine
chapel. Once there you cannot return to the museum. It was a bit hard to figure out where to go, but after a brief wrong turn into the courtyard, we headed back into the museum proper and worked our way though the various galleries.
Judging from the Egyptian rooms, it is obvious that Italy did more than a little site seeing in that part of the world. Though not as impressive as the pieces in the Egyptian museum, the Vatican collection is much better presented and often labeled in English. As well, you can take photos which was not the case in Egypt. There are some particularly well preserved mummies and carvings here.
Next we moved on to a long hallway of sculptures, many of them with fig leaves conspicuously stuck on. It someways, this collection is almost too much to take in as there are literally hundreds of marble statues, busts, and heads to take in in this long hallway.
After this we moved on to a dimly lit long hallway hung with tapestries. The shear scope and detains of these works is amazing and the dim light, combined with the quiet accoustics of the cloth
clad room makes this seem like a very spiritual place.
We moved on to the first of the rooms containing paintings - all on an enormous scale that seems deliberately intended to dwarf the viewer. From there we moved on to several rooms painted by Raphael. Here the restored colours on the ceiling seem almost garish in their brilliance, quite different from the dimmer images that we have come to associate with old paintings.
After touring through apartments that had once served as the Pope's private rooms, we moved on to part of the building devoted to more recent ecclesiastical art. Here I would like to have been part of a tour as I found many of these works less accessible without some context or explanation.
Finally, we moved into the Sistine chapel where no speaking, photography or videography is allowed. It is difficult to comprehend the scope of the Michelangelo ceiling from individual images - they can never recreate the feeling of looking up at this work in its whole. This is also the room in which the Pope is elected by the college of cardinals and seems to resonate with history and untold secrets.
It
was far less crowded in the chapel from the last time I visited, and we were able to take seats along the benches that line the perimeter. From here we could comfortably take in the various panels without the sort of reverse vertigo that you get from walking in slow circles with your head tilted back. Certainly the panel showing God creating Adam is captivating, but so are many of the less famous images that lead to this centre piece.
After leaving the Sistine chapel, we walked a bit of a distance away from the Vatican and bought some breakfast as well as finding an INTERNET place. Here we were able to confirm that we had a place in Florence for tomorrow night.
We had not yet been inside the Church of Saint Peter's, so we headed back to the Vatican to see about getting in. In St. Peter's square there was some light security where our knapsacks were scanned and we quickly found ourselves in the crowd watching the Pope speak from the far end of the square. He was also being projected on a large screen in various locations. We moved close and I took some photos.
It seemed remarkably odd to sort of stumble across the spiritual leader of millions of people when we had no idea that we might see him.
As our real reason for returning was to see St. Peter's Cathedral, we headed over to that side of the square and asked one of the swiss guards. Unfortunately, due to the Pope's audience, the church was not to open until 1 pm today (it was only about 11 am now). As we were set to meet Lily's godmother at 2:30, we realized we would have to miss it. Despite having seen the Pope, we, at least Evy and I, are not happy campers.
As we hadn't yet been to the Spanish steps, we headed over there before going down to the main train station to ask about tickets to Florence. Once again, train cost in Italy seems to be all over the map with this next trip costing about 3 times as much as our similar distance trip to Rome from Sorrento, this is getting a bit frustrating not to mention hard on the budget.
After the train station we took the subway again to the station close to Lily's
godmother (Ivana's) house. After a short wait, Ivana picked us up in her SUV and took us on a driving tour. Our first stop was a church, St Sebastien, below which are early Christian Catacombs. As it turned out, the guided tour here wasn't starting for another half an hour so we drove further down the road to an stretch of cobblestone that dates back to Roman times where we toured the ruins of another ancient tomb. After this we returned to the church and bought tickets for tour of the catacombs.
Though the bodies have all been removed from the catacombs, the place still seems spooky and eerily quiet. Though the tombs are from an early Christian period, above the tombs are the burial chambers of pre-Christian Romans. These are very well preserved and have quite detailed frescoes painted on the walls. After a brief tour of the Church on top, we rejoined Ivana out front.
Our was a set of recently uncover ruins set in a hillside. Once again here, an artist's rendering of what the original site looked like lets you appreciate that scale and scope of this ancient palace. These particular ruins have only
been uncovered in the last twenty years or so and are still be unearthed in sections.
Our last stop was a large park area close to Ivana's home, where a roman aqueduct stands entirely complete in some sections, stretching many hundred meters off across a green field. Joshua and Benjamin attempted (unsuccessfully) to climb up the pillars. The park had many joggers, bikers and people walking their dogs casually around this incredible feat of ancient engineering.
Ivana kindly invited us back to her condo after this, which occupies the entire first floor of a multi floor building and is far larger than most houses. Here we met her daughter, Giulia and had piece after piece of pizza. After a final cappucino and a brief visit from her husband and second daughter, Samantha, Giulia kindly drove us all the way back to our apartment.
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nwaocha ogechukeu
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the secret behind the cross and crucifix
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