I'm not sure if you can tell from our last two posts but we have crammed a TON into our first two days in Rome. Today is our last full day in this famous city, and there's one BIG tourist attraction we haven't visited yet: THE Vatican.
Monday, January 15: Vatican City
Our morning started with another breakfast on the hotel rooftop. Good views, good food, and killer lighting made this an easy way to wake up and start our day!
What a Life Tours
After a short metro ride, we made it to What a Life Tours, where we met our tour guide and began our walk to the Vatican walls.
Musei Vaticani: Vatican Museums
After passing through the metal detectors we made our way to the famous Vatican stairwell entrance for the beautiful photo that is recognized around the world. Our tour guide also gave us a quick little history lesson.
Most people know that the Vatican is where the Pope of the Catholic church lives. For a long time, the Pope had a lot of say in the Italian government and swayed lawmakers and policy to match the church's stance. Then in 1929, the Fascist Party & the Catholic Church signed the Lateran Treaty officially stating the Vatican as a separate city-state. To this day, Vatican City runs as an independent country, home to a population of about 764 across a mere 121 acres.
To put that into context, NC State's Carter Finley Stadium sits on 75 acres of land. So Vatican City is two Carter Finleys. That's a pretty small stand-alone country, if you ask me!
Bryan and I have visited the other most-known independent city-state in the world: Singapore. Like Singapore, Vatican City has its own guard (military), politics, economy, and cultural life from the surrounding countries.
As we continued our way towards the Vatican Museums, our guide did a great job at pausing and explaining Michaelangelo's work here in the Vatican. While this man painted the famous Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michaelangelo also designed the famous Vatican Dome which can be spotted all over Rome.
Cortile della Pigna: Pigna Courtyard
Our guide even paused in the Pigna Courtyard to point out and explain the many paintings seen in Michaelangelo's famous ceiling. Though we would see the paintings later in our tour, we learned that it took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling and another five years to paint The Last Judgment on the back wall. During this nine-year commitment, he went partially blind, snuck in a self-portrait on the back wall, and painted a portrait of an enemy in his depiction of hell.
No wonder that man is legendary!
Eventually, we made it to the first of the three museums we would visit. First was the museum of statues, and as you may have guessed, it was filled with tons of statues.
This statue portion of the museum also contained marble mosaics, Egyptian copies of sculptures, and marble-upon-marble-upon-more marble.
The next portion of the museum was filled with tapestries. These wall hangings hung floor-to-ceiling and depicted famous biblical scenes alongside famous Roman stories (like the murder of Julius Ceasar.)
I also found the ceilings in this area to be the coolest part! While not THE ceiling of the Vatican complex, I have to admit, this 2D-painted ceiling looked like it was going to pop out at us. Yep, look at those photos below- that ceiling was designed with only paint and some good shading. Nothing is 3D on that ceiling!
Galleria delle Carte Geografiche: Gallery of Maps
The final portion of the Vatican museum was the Gallery of Maps. This room was designed by two brothers to display different regions of Italy. While the maps were intricate and impressive, I was blown away by the ceiling, yet again.
Now this ceiling included sculptures and paintings to make an amazing puzzle of regal imagery. I spent the entire walk staring up at the rooftop! I mean, just flip through these pictures to see the impressive, virtually unknown ceiling art:
The final room before the Sistine Chapel was filled with some other Renaissance paintings of Popes in churches and famous Italian battles. Clearly, by this point, we were a little overwhelmed with all the Italian paintings and sculptures. When my Mom agrees that we have seen A LOT of art, you know we have reached a limit!
Cappella Sistina: Sistine Chapel
Then we visited the world's most famous ceiling: The Sistine Chapel. We couldn't take pictures and I ACTUALLY followed this rule, since men in suits were walking around yelling at anyone who tried to pull out a cell phone. BUT here's a handout our guide gave us that explained some of the ceiling's artwork and the Last Judgement painting on the back wall.
This handout was beyond helpful as we bent our necks to stare up at the one-of-a-kind work. Michelangelo started by painting 3 panels of the story of Noah, and upon the completion of those, realized the scenes were too small and hard to see from the ground. With this knowledge, he completed the remaining 6 panels telling the creation story.
These 9 panels are surrounded by smaller scenes from the Bible, including David & Goliath, Jonah, a portrait of Zechariah, and many other prophets and ancestors of Christ.
To say it was impressive is an understatement, but I can admit, I was more shocked by the earlier ceilings in the Vatican that were unexpected in their beauty. The ten minutes we stood there staring up at the roof was breathtaking. (Partly from the neck craning, partly from what we were seeing!)
As we left the Sistine Chapel, I was quick to snap a selfie showing how we felt after seeing Michalangelo's Sistine Chapel!
Obelisco di Piazza San Pietro: Obelisk of St Peter's Square
After marveling at the Sistine Chapel, we headed out to St. Peter's Square, where it was time to enter our last stop on the tour: Saint Peter's Basilica.
This famous square was not as packed as I imagined or had seen in videos, but I think it's because we visited during the off-season. I can only imagine how much busier (and hotter) it would be in peak summertime!
Basilica di San Pietro: St. Peter's Basilica
As we entered the Basilica, Mom about lost her mind standing in front of the Madonna della Pietà. As the third work of Michelangelo's that we have seen today, I think Mom thought she had died and gone to heaven! For those keeping count: the Dome, Sistine Chapel, and now la Pietà make up our magical trio.
This is actually the second Michelangelo sculpture that Bryan and I have seen, the first being the Madonna of Bruges when we visited The Church of Our Lady Bruges in Belgium back in September.
We learned that la Pietà is behind bulletproof glass after a lunatic in 1972 smashed the statue 15 times with a geologist's hammer while screaming "I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead!" This crazed man chipped off Mary's nose and her right arm before fellow visitors were able to restrain him, leading the Vatican to restore the statue with pieces of marble from the back.
After pulling Mom away from this marvelous piece, we made our way to the center of the church, where we were lucky to witness a priest giving blessings to visitors and a short mass.
Our guide was surprised to see this happening, as it's apparently not a common occurrence. We aren't Catholic or Italian, so we weren't completely sure what was happening, but it was a pretty unique experience. Seeing those blessed visitors' reactions made our timing pretty perfect too.
Ending our tour in Saint Peter's Basilica was the best way to finish. Once our guide left us, we continued to gawk at the stunning brilliance of Saint Peter's Basilica as we wandered the halls. Seeing previous popes preserved in wax, numerous alters of various saints, and the magnitude of size, decor, and pomp, we were truly blown away. So much so that both Dad and Bryan said visiting Saint Peter's Basilica was the highlight of the trip for them!
I don't think pictures or videos can truly encapsulate the beauty of this place, but here's an attempt:
Pastasciutta
Leaving the Vatican a little speechless, we headed to Pastasciutta for lunch! With a line wrapping around the building, we knew this €7 pasta bowl was going to be well worth the wait! We placed our order, lucked out with four seats inside and dang, this pasta was AMAZING!
Mom and Dad got the two tomato-based sauces, while Bryan and I split the Roman Carbonara and the Truffle pasta. Considering everyone cleaned their bowls, I think it's safe to say everyone was very happy with this lunch choice!
Our afternoon passed quickly as we wandered the streets on our way back to the hotel. From street markets, pastry shops, and a stop at Starbucks, I was happy to see Mom and Dad enjoying themselves!
In need of a rest, we headed up to the hotel's rooftop for a drink and a game of cards while watching the sunset. This is why Bryan and I love traveling with others! We would never have paused for an evening of laughing as the sun cast golden hues over the Roman skyline, if it hadn't been for traveling with Mom and Dad!
Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli
Renewed with evening energy, we headed back out to visit another Basilica! Remember when I said we got to see three Michaelangelo's today? Well, we figured we could fit in one more, so we rushed to the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli to see Michaelangelo's Moses statue. Resembling Triton from Disney's The Little Mermaid, this statue was just as unique as la Pietà in the Vatican!
We were also shocked to see chains that held Saint Peter in Jerusalem. All in one day, we saw where St. Peter was buried and the chains that bonded him. Dang.
While Michaelangeo's Moses statue doesn't have a crazy story of being attacked, we experienced a little crazy when the bells chimed at 5:50 pm and then all lights immediatly went out. The church was supposed to close at 6 pm, but we were forced to leave in darkness ten minutes early as the church sexton closed the gates. We were surprised, but other people were quite upset at the early closure; thank goodness. we didn't cut it too close!
PINSALLEGRA
I demanded pizza for dinner since it was our last day in the city. I was going to fill our final day with as many carbs as possible, so Bryan found us a truly authentic local pizza spot for dinner! We walked in to find a few locals enjoying a bite, grabbed drinks from the cooler, and then ordered pizzas! As we waited for our pizzas to cook, we enjoyed talking about our favorite parts of the trip and laughing at all the great memories we had made so far!
Even though we were stuffed from our delicious pizza, there's always room for more gelato! I mean, it's our last night, you can't judge!!! So we enjoyed another evenig of gelator for dessert.
But we still weren't ready for the night to end. On our walk back to the hotel, we swung into a little convenience store and bought a bottle of Prosecco and a little bottle of limoncello with the hopes of saving a few bucks at the hotel's rooftop bar. With cards in hand and our contraband drinks tucked in our jacket pockets, we headed back up to the roof for a night of games.
We should have just bought the pricy rooftop drinks because the €14 bottle of Prosecco we got was NOT GOOD. I mean, we drank it, but we got what we deserved by trying to cheat the system! Hey, but it led to some great laughs!!!
Tuesday, January 16: Back to Goldsboro
Tuesday morning came early when we made our way back to the airport to head home! Lucky for us, we caught the right bus-train-combo, so we arrived at the airport earlier than expected!
We grabbed a breakfast bite at the airport's McDonalds before our 9 am flight back to Southern Spain. Mom enjoyed her window seat as she snapped pictures of Italy's coast, then Sardinia Island, and finally the Spanish fields!
We may have been a little down to leave Rome, but we were greeted with some happy puppies when Gigi and Poppy walked back through the doors of our home! One final night with Gigi and Poppy meant extra cuddles and love from Hugo and Reynolds!
Wednesday, January 17: Kimbles Head Home
While Bryan went to work, it was time to get two Kimbles up and moving to the airport. After extra puppy love, we stopped by the hospital to give Bryan final hugs before making our way back to Sevilla Airport.
A week-and-a-half was not long enough with Mom and Dad here, but we sure know how to pack in a ton of traveling and exploring in whatever time we can get! Now it's time to start planning their next trip!
'til then,
--Katie
コメント