Rome, Day 2

On our second day in Rome we got up early for breakfast at our hotel and headed out to meet up with the same tour group we had for the Colosseum and Roman Forum. It ended up taking longer than we thought to drop off our bags at the train station, so we missed the deadline for the group to meet. We were a little bummed, but still hopped the train to Vatican City anyway, popped up onto the street and there they were! We should have known tour group leaders are the most visible people in Rome. We were able to join the group for the morning tour of Vatican City.

Since we came on a Wednesday, I thought we’d be lucky enough to avoid some of the crowds. I was wrong. As we entered the Museum there were swarms of people everywhere, and the majority of them were foreign teenage groups. Teenagers tend to annoy me to begin with, but when I don’t understand what they’re saying and they laugh at EVERYTHING, I'm ready to claw my eyes out.

Touring this place has been a mission of mine for years, though. I’ve been to Rome a couple of times before this one, and each time the Sistine Chapel has been closed. I make it halfway around the world to Rome and I’m denied again and again!

The finale of our Vatican Museum tour this morning is the Sistine Chapel, so touring with these groups would have to do.

The first area we visited were a few of the gardens. Here are some pictures:

You can tell when sculptors from this period have reproduced a statue from the original bronze model if they’re standing next to a stump or something similar at their feet.

A statue of that size can’t stand on the legs alone because of the weight of the marble. In the one above you can see the tree stump at the bottom, and the robe he has draped over his left arm is also necessary to hold up the weight of the arm.

This one is the only statue they have that still has its glass eyes:

Almost all of the sculptures had glass eyes at one point and were usually painted. Also, check out the fig leaf. I can't remember who our guide said it was, but when he had control over the Museum he had all the little pee-pees replaced with fig leaves, therefore ruining each and every sculpture. When they realized what had been done they just decided to keep the leaves on in order to avoid further damage. So now most of them remain decent for the kids.

We were then led through various rooms in the Museum, which was a nightmare. Just picture about a thousand people trying to fit through several regular-sized doorways. It’s comparable, maybe even worse, than the Red line before a Cubs game in Chicago. About halfway through I was retreating to my happy place, singing the David Archuleta song in my head (“Lalalalaaaaa, happy plaaaace“). There’s only so much jostling and squishing you can take before you just want to bang your head up against a wall. At one point dad got caught up on an older, overeager German couple who literally snapped his headphone wire in half.

While we were fighting the people Mom took some pretty good pictures:

This is the original School of Athens by Raphael:

I think this was called the Hall of Maps - they have maps of the world lining the walls:

Then we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel! No pictures here because we weren’t allowed, but you’ve seen the paintings many times I’m sure. You’re not supposed to really talk either, so there was a big “SHHHH” about every 30 seconds from the museum guards to all the flippin' teenagers. The four of us found some benches and collapsed. It felt like we’d been in battle for the last two hours, and only had enough energy to crane our necks and stare at the ceiling with our mouths wide open.

As we left we were shown the hallways that all foreign dignitaries and other important people take to meet with the Pope. This is the first leg:

This is the final, with the Pope’s doors at the top:

As we left the Vatican Museum we were in need of food and sedatives. We took care of the first at a sidewalk café. We were all tired and scowling at each other. It was that moment of travel when the allure of a place gives way to reality. Nothing was “cool and Italian” anymore, we just wanted a hamburger.

If you remember from earlier, you know how my mother is with the street beggars here. She never meets a stranger. So as the accordion/fiddle players approach our table my dad barks, “Donna don’t turn around, I’m not paying for it!” It wasn’t funny to any of us at the time but it’s pretty darn entertaining now :).

Next we made our way over to St. Peter’s Basilica. Here I am standing in front of it:

I never knew this before, but the square in front of the Basilica marks the area where Christians were crucified for their beliefs centuries before. Pretty moving.

A couple of the Swiss guards:

St. Peter’s hold the remains of every pope that’s ruled the Catholic Church, and it’s massive. Here’s a picture of Mr. “I’m sick of looking at churches” Poppe touring the place:

To be honest though we were all blown away as we walked in. Every time I’m there I am, it’s just so big and beautiful. We make our way around the main floor and then head to the Vatican grottoes below. It is assumed that the remains of St. Peter himself are housed here. You have to be very quiet as you walk the grottoes because there are many people in prayer, the majority of them praying to Pope John Paul II who was laid to rest here after his death in 2005.

The first time I made it to the grottoes was on accident. I was in college and wandering the place with a few other girls. We found the exit (not the entrance) to the grottoes and ended up interrupting a devotional session to St. Peter by literally walking between the praying monks and St. Peter's remains. I’d just finished reading The DaVinci Code and was convinced we were going to be cursed by the highest order of monks in the Catholic Church! We never did get in trouble, though. Again, another story that’s funnier now than it was then.

The last part of our tour of St. Peter’s was the cupola. This is quite a hike up hundreds of stairs to the absolute top of the church. But it’s worth it for the view:

This is my new Italian boyfriend, for those of you who’ve asked.

In this one you can see in the distance the Roman Forum and the Colosseum (look for the big white building in the top left and then you’ll see the top, dark gray ring of the Colosseum just to the right):

Then on the way down we caught the inside corridor looking down on the main area of the church interior. There were a few cardinals gathered so it turned out to be a really cool picture:

At this point we’d almost come to the end of the day. We had seriously covered Vatican City and St. Peter’s and were ready to chill out. We made our way to the station, found our train and settled in for the five hour ride back to Vicenza. I made sure to take little Davey Archuleta off my playlist; I'd had enough of him for one day.