Hey, y'all! I'm back tonight.
Told you it might be a while, but that I'd get to blogging again. Surprise, surprise: I was sick this past week. Stomach flu seems to be going around. I guess it was my turn. Darn.
I believe I left off with Flavia taking us to the Vatican Museum.
The grounds:
There's some sort of significance of the pine cone and the peacocks. I can't totally remember, though. It was very hot that day...at least, it was for me.
To the left is the museum, and I believe on the right is the Sistine Chapel. You have to go through the museum to get to the chapel...which was the highlight for me.
Walking into the museum, we were immediately told that the sculptures that the popes collected over the years would be everywhere. Look to the right and then look to the left: sculptures everywhere.
This one had a lot of animal sculptures:
I'm really not one for sculptures (Sorry, Michelangelo), but the ceilings were really cool. I think that was my favorite part about the museum. The floors were even cooler than the sculptures, in my opinion.
These are the three muses. A bit different than all the muses in Disney's "Hercules"...
More ceilings...
Above each entry, there was a seal of a pope:
Here's probably one of the most interesting sculptures: a prototype of the sun god, Apollo, that Michelangelo made before he painted in the Sistine Chapel. Seeing as he was a sculpture, and not a painter, it makes sense that he'd rather sculpt and even sculpt to help him paint. He based Jesus off of Apollo.
The Apollo sculpture is one of the only he signed:
And, as usual, I was more interested in what was above my head:
And we get to a room with Egyptian stuff:
On both sides are special caskets...for lack of a better word. I don't remember what they are made out of. I just know they are special enough for me to take pictures, I guess.
More beautiful ceilings. I feel bad for sculptures...I just don't have what it takes to appreciate their work.
And this was on the floor. I think the blue stone was rare.
Leo the XII above one of the archways:
What is really cool about this ceiling is that it looks like it is all carvings, but it isn't! It's an optical illusion. I could've sworn that it was carved. Nope: paint!
Oh, by the way: this is the tapestry room, if you couldn't figure that out. It smelled really dusty. Makes me wonder if they ever cleaned the rugs on the walls...ever.
The tapestries, though dusty smelling, were really cool. To think that people made these thread by thread. I just can't imagine messing up and having to do it all again. They had to have had plans before sitting down to make them, right?
I believe this one was the largest:
More paintings that look like they are carved. So cool.
And this entire ceiling too! Those painters were so talented.
This was the "Map" room. It had paintings of all of Italy and the different parts/regions in it. Each painting on the ceiling corresponded with the map under it. So, St. Anthony of Padua was over the map that had Padua.
Out a window in the map room:
One of the pope's seal has a dragon on it. I can't remember which, but here's the seal.
So, I'd love to say I have pictures of the Sistine Chapel. It was my favorite place of this part of the day. But I don't, because you aren't allowed to take pictures in there. It is so amazing, though. I wish that I could've laid down on the ground and just stared up at the ceiling or the walls...even the walls that Michelangelo didn't do (He did the main part of the ceiling and the main wall of The Last Judgement).
After the museum and chapel, we headed over to St. Peter's basilica.
Outside St. Peter's:
Up on the steps, we saw where Pope Francis had been sitting just that past Wednesday the audience we attended again:
St. Peter's truly is massive. And gold. I've noticed that Italy sure likes to have gold all over their churches, basilicas, cathedrals, etc. Just an observation. And...I'm more of a silver person. To each his own.
All along the main isle, you can see all the apostles. I'll have close-ups later.
Michelangelo's "Pietà", I have to admit, is spectacular. Probably my favorite sculpture I've ever seen. It's behind bullet-proof glass now because some idiot decided to vandalize it years ago and they had to repair it.
Flavia told us that two women are buried under St. Peter's in the scavi (where the popes are buried). One of them is Queen Christina of Sweden. In St. Peter's, we saw the monument to her. She was one of the first Catholic converts, I believe, to be royalty.
I got to see where St. Pope JPII is resting too. He is up in the actual basilica because so many people want to visit him:
Walking around the basilica:
The Pope's alter:
Below is St. Peter's bones...though you can't see them...they are really far down. It's more like a place to pray near them without actually going into the scavi:
So, to put things in perspective, in the dome above the main altar, the letters are 6 feet tall. That's taller than me! (Though, that's not a big accomplishment, I know.)
Above the saints and/or apostles, there are important relics specific to them. I can't remember what's in this one...
Behind the pope's altar is the altar of the chair of St. Peter:
I may talk about this chapel more later, since it's where Sam and Zane got ordained.
Moving on to more ceiling pictures:
Here's St. Veronica! I remember that above here is a piece of the cloth she wiped Jesus' face with:
I'm pretty sure a piece of his cross is up there.
On the floor are markings of famous basilicas and cathedrals around the world so that you can see how much larger St. Peter's is compared to them. We walked along, looking at ones we recognized, like Notre Dame de Paris.
And I snapped a picture of this side chapel because I thought it was pretty on the way out:
After our tour of the Basilica of St. Peter, we all headed back to the hotel. Most of our group was done with touring for the day, but Mom and I decided a few days prior that we were going to go on the extra historical tour with Francesco. We wanted to go to places that were not part of the main tour and see some historical sites that may not necessarily be part of a Catholic pilgrimage.
First stop was the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Mom and I couldn't remember exactly, but it seemed that there was a story behind throwing a certain number of coins into the fountain: one was to come back to Rome, two was to get married, and maybe three was to find true love? We asked Francesco. He said that three was to get a divorce...no. He was just teasing. It was a joke, especially among the Italians, it seems. He was so much fun.
Mom did drag me down into the crowds. And we each threw one coin into the fountain. So, I guess I'll go back to Rome someday...
I believe this is in the Spanish square. Every year, the pope, with the help of firemen, put flowers up with Mary:
The Spanish steps were too crowded for me. I went down to throw a coin in the fountain. That's enough people. I just looked at the steps and said, "Too people-y. I've walked too much today anyway." Mom agreed.
But I got a better view of Mary standing in front of the Spanish steps:
It was beginning to get late and we still had to get to the restaurant to have dinner, so we had to head back to the bus. There was one problem: in order to get to the bus, we had to walk through a political rally. Too many people. In order to stay together, we tourists made a weird sort of conga line, each having a hand on a shoulder or back of the person in front of us...at least, that's what I did with Mom in front of me.
After getting through the political sea of people (I don't even want to go to an American rally...why did I have to go through an Italian one?), I snapped a picture:
I don't remember where exactly we went for dinner, but I think it was probably the best, food-wise, out of all the tour/pilgrimage prepaid meals.
After dinner, we road the bus back to the hotel. Francesco put on music, which Mom and I and the other tourists who were with us sang songs including "In Naples" by Dean Martin and "Mamma Mia" by ABBA. I sang until my voice hurt. Just so much fun. And it was very special for the tourists who were part of the Northern tour that were with us, because it was their last night with their first tour guide, Andrea, before officially joining us with Francesco.
That's about it for Day 4. I'll try to get to Day 5 soon.
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