Rome Day 2

Bright and early we woke up and ate a quick bite of breakfast before heading to the Vatican. We forgot to buy a transit ticket last night before everything closed so we had to wait to buy one when the tobacco shop was open in the mall again, instead we decided it wouldn't be a long walk to the metro station from our hotel. It was about a 25-minute walk. Because of the later start and having to walk, we didn't get to go to see St. Peter's Basilica before our skip-the-line tickets into the Vatican Museums (which is where you get to see the Sistene Chapel). We had to go straight to the line cue from the metro station. We walked through a few of the museums but I was a little disgusted by the treasures on display from the many conquests of the Catholic Church. 

A statue inside of the
Vatican Museum

We did a quick tour so we could get to the Sistene Chapel. Now that was downright amazing! Let me clarify, the paintings were amazing. The chapel itself wasn't much more than a rectangle room with a partition wall about 2/3 of the way back. As I wrote about earlier that a friend in our ward had lent me a book about Michelangelo and his painting of the Sistene Chapel ceiling. The book is entitled, "The Sistene Secrets" and it actually tells about the ceiling and the Final Judgement painted on the front wall. I hadn't finished the book by the time we went into the chapel and so I missed being able to see everything first-hand what the book described but I got to appreciate a lot more than I would have if I hadn't read some of it. 

A Relief Sculpture inside of Vatican Museums

More Relief Sculptures

A somewhat brief summary of the book is this: Michelangelo Buonarotti was extremely talented as a young man and was taken in by Colosimo de Medici who lived in Florence. He was basically adopted by and provided education and mentors and training by the Medici family in his early years. While in Florence, he learned from a Jewish teacher the ways of Kabbalah and the Talmud in addition to the traditional Catholic religion and so he was considered a Neoplatonist because of the mix of thought. Florence was removed from Rome by a pretty decent distance and so the Medici family ruled with this Neoplatonic philosophy which really influenced Michelangelo and other artists from the area. The Pope in Rome, however, wanted to have control of Florence and this created a great deal of discord between Florence and Rome. At one point, the Pope and some of his minions actually tried to assassinate Colosimo's grandsons on Easter Sunday during mass! Lorenzo, was only minorly hurt but his brother Giovanni was murdered that day. Michelangelo had grown up with these two young men and was very close friends with them. Following this near assassination, things were still tense between the Pope and the Medicis. To avoid an all-out war, Lorenzo tried to appease the Pope by sending some of the greatest artists to Rome to help build the Sistene Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica so he could run Florence as he had been doing. Michelangelo was one of the artists who was forced by the Pope to come to Rome and to paint, which was his least favorite form of art, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo hated it! That is putting it mildly. He spent 4 years painting it and he resented everything about the job. He also had no respect for the Pope and saw him and the Church as being extremely corrupt. In fact, Pope Julius II contracted syphilis while he was a cardinal and had fathered at least a few illegitimate children! Because of his hatred of the Pope as well as his need to be discreet or lose his life, Michelangelo painted various secret messages in the Sistene Ceiling and later in his life, in the Final Judgement. The author of the book is a Jewish scholar and so this is all from his point of view but, a lot of his viewpoints made sense. I did grow to respect Michelangelo as a person as well as a skillful and talented artist. I like the fact that he followed his beliefs and that he rebelled against the tyrannical Church of his day. He believed as he painted in his frescoes that the Gospel is meant for all people, not just the Catholic Church. He felt compassion for others who had been oppressed and even martyred by the Church. He represented many of their beliefs and their people in his frescos. He was also a genius. He didn't love to paint, his strength and love was in sculpture but he mastered painting! He had studied anatomy to make his art more realistic and it was expertly depicted in his work. One of my favorite messages in the Sistene Chapel is the Creation panel. It shows God and several other souls inside of a capelike shape which seems to depict the pre-existence. It was discovered by a surgeon that the cape is in the shape of the right hemisphere of the brain, the brainstem, and other anatomically accurate details. This symbolizes wisdom. The other individuals inside of the "cape/brain" are the souls of Adam, Eve, and others. God, with his left hand, is touching the shoulder of Adam's soul with his left arm draped over the shoulders of Eve. With God's right hand he is almost touching Adam's left hand as he is being created. According to the Kabbalah, all nutrients flow through the body through the left side because of the aorta being pumped from the heart to the left side. Thus, Michelangelo is portraying that God's wisdom and gifts are being given to Adam through his left side. The author is saying that Michelangelo is also acknowledging that all of his personal gifts, talents, and wisdom comes from God. I just love the symbolism of that! There is so much more in the book that I loved.
They didn't allow pictures to be taken but you can find them and just look at it. Michelangelo created a work of art that surpassed and has impacted millions of people. 

Dave and I before we stood in line for 2 1/2 hours
to see inside of St. Peter's

St. Peter's Basilica

Fountain in Piazza of St.
Peter's Basilica

Interior of St. Peter's

Pieta, by Michelangelo
inside of St. Peter's

Interior of St. Peter's
Throne of St. Peter

Interior of Dome of St. Peter's

Vatican Guards outside of St. Peter's

After the Sistene Chapel, we walked to St. Peter's Basilica. There were thousands of people there and a line to get inside! 





We stood in line for 2 1/2 hours to go inside of St. Peter's Basilica but, when in Rome, you gotta see it! Dave was a trooper entertaining my whims and helping me scratch-off items on my bucket list --- ON HIS BIRTHDAY! 

Rome Temple of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

I think we ended it all on the highest note by going to the Rome temple if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love the hope the gospel of Jesus brings. The Christus statue portrays Him with outstretched arms welcoming all and like the water fountains flowing throughout the city, His love, atonement, and grace is free and ever-flowing! I loved that his 12 apostles are standing behind him in a semicircle. 

Stained Glass Window inside of
Rome Temple Visitor's Center

The Christus Statue with his Apostles standing behind

Dave, in his happy spot, on his birthday after indulging in
my plans the entire trip

How important they would have been in this area when they served missions here.
What an awesome way to cap off our week! There were at least 4 couples from Utah attending at the same time as us and one other from St. George so that was fun!
Rome will forever be a great memory and this vacation was over the top! 

Rome, Day 1

We were off to Rome, saying goodbye to Umbria and Tuscany for the remainder of our trip. The drive was about 3 hours and so once again, we left before breakfast because we had stuff to see and do in Rome! Along our drive, we hit a bit of traffic and so we again defied our GPS somewhat and turned off the main motorway we were driving on and took a few detours. I'm once again so glad we did! We drive right up into another hilltown called Narni. The hill the town was built on was quite steep and so the road up to it and through it zigzagged up the mountain. I wish we had more time to get out of the car and see the town! Once again it felt like we were driving past Sleeping Beauty's medieval time period. The drive was beautiful. I know I keep using that word, but I can't help it, that's the best way to describe it. The canyon through the mountains was steep and cut by a river, called Nera. The countryside was neat. We did eventually get back onto the main motorway or autostrada and drove following our GPS all the way into Rome and to Hotel Cristoforo Colombo. We tried checking in early but, the hotel clerk was not very friendly and they wanted to charge us 45 euros for early check-in. We weren't going to do that. They said we could park in the parking lot anyway and we left to buy a transit ticket to go into the Rome City center where all of the historical sites were near the Colosseum. We had to buy a transit ticket in a mall next to the hotel at a tobacco shop. We caught a bus that took us to the train station and from there we caught the metro to the Colosseum. 

The Colosseum

We had purchased skip-the-line tickets for 2:30pm for the Colosseum which included tickets inside of the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill that didn't have a set time. 

Archway at Roman Forum
Ruins

A Drinking Fountain in
the Ruins of the Palpatine Hill

We walked through amazing ancient ruins for a few hours at both of these sites. Incredible. I wish I could go back in time and see what life was like when it was all built. 

Palpatine Hill Ruins

Roman Forum Columns

Inside details of Palpatine
Hill Palace

Column Detail Ruins

Roman Forum Ruins

Roman Forum Ruins

Map of Roman Forum Ruins

Roman Forum Ruins

Ruins at Roman Forum

Ruins at Roman Forum

Fountain Restored in the
Roman Forum Area

Archway in Roman Forum ruins

Lower Fountain at Roman Forum

We went inside of the Temple of Romulus which is a small museum on the Roman Forum site which had some artifacts from an area near the coast that had been conquered various times throughout history. I can't remember the name of the area but there were some pretty neat artifacts. 

After spending about an hour and a half or maybe two hours at the Forum and Palpatine Hill, we had to get back to the Colosseum for our reserved skip-the-line tickets. We were able to go right in at our reserved time which saved a bunch of time compared to the long line of people waiting to get inside. 

Interior of Colosseum

Column Detail inside of
Colosseum

Dave and I Inside of Colosseum

Description of Use of Colosseum

The Colosseum was kind of what you would expect of it. There wasn't a bunch different from pictures that you can see but amazing in its huge size and the history of what kind of things they did here. It is rather barbaric and hard to imagine people filling the arena for gladiator fights, various games involving deadly creatures ripping people apart and executions to the death. Kind of gives you the creeps! It was also crazy that the Catholic Church has placed its mark on the place like they own it. There was a plaque with the cross on it and it's hard to imagine if they condone the activities that went on here or if it was just recognition of it as a historical place. Kind of weird. 

Dave and I Outside of Colosseum

Interior of Colosseum

More Description of Colosseum

After we left the Colosseum we were accosted by several street vendors, if you want to call them that, selling various things to tourists like water, selfie sticks, cell phone battery chargers and whatever else. They were actually all over outside of the Colosseum and archeological sites of the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum and we had to tell them multiple times that we did not want anything. Some were quite aggressive and it got old really quickly. The kind of funny thing about them selling water is that several places all over the city have free water fountains, called nasone. If you did not have a refillable water bottle or even a disposable one to refill, you could actually drink right out of them! I was even wondering if these guys selling water had just gone and filled water bottles up at these fountains and were trying to sell them. It got to a point you'd just have to ignore them because if you made eye contact it only encouraged them to keep bothering you. Also, there were SO MANY PEOPLE! I'm so glad we bought skip-the-line tickets because the lines of people were so long! 

Interior of Colosseum

Interior of Colosseum

Piazza Venezia

Of course, our day would not be complete without doing our own walking tour of Rome! This time we began with grabbing something to eat so we didn't miss out and go hungry again. We found a little fast food cafe and a piece of the flatbread pizza slices. 

We walked to the Trevi Fountain with a few thousand of our closest friends-hahaha- trying to get that postcard-perfect photograph. It might have been nice to take a seat and just enjoy the piazza for a while but it was so crowded, it almost took away from the awesomeness!

Trevi Fountain

Fountain at Bottom of Spanish Steps

Spanish Steps with the Crowds of People

From the Trevi Fountain, we headed for the Spanish Steps, again there were so many people buzzing around the place, more water salesmen and actually men selling roses. One tried to stick a rose in my hands and Dave told him to leave us alone. We were so tired of these street vendors getting in our faces and not leaving us alone! 

The Pantheon

The Oculus of the Pantheon

Interior of Pantheon

After the Spanish Steps, we doubled-back to see the Pantheon. Incredible that something so old is so well-preserved! Inside, you guessed it, it was declared the property of the Catholic Church (eye-roll), so they've turned it into a church. What is awesome here is that the roof is actually open to the outside called an oculus. It stays open rain or shine and so, there is a drainage system built into the floor! It was really beautiful! 

Oculus of The Pantheon

Exterior Angle of Pantheon

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona

We spent the rest of the evening walking through various piazzas and pedestrian-only streets like Via Dei Coronari, Piazza Navona, Campo de' Fiori, and streets between. 







By the end of the evening, we had almost seen everything on my Google Map in Rome. I had planned on it taking us two days to do. It was kind of rushed and we wore ourselves out (again) but we did it! It got dark towards the end and so a little less appealing visually as well as feeling a little insecure due to not being familiar with our surroundings but, we did get to see what I wanted to! Even with my Google Map, without the internet, it didn't do us much good. Dave had to keep using his phone to connect to the internet and navigating using Google to get where we wanted to go. Finally, we had to find the metro station to get back to our hotel. We had to walk quite aways all the way around the Palatine Hill site to get there. It was dark but we were able to get some pictures.

Via Dei Coronari

Piazza Navona

The Mouth of Truth

Arch Outside of Colosseum

It was kind of like a treasure hunt finding all the places on my Google Map. We found the Mouth of Truth inside of a fenced-in courtyard. While we searched across the street, we saw a rat, which was kind of creepy. We were able to get a picture of the Colosseum all lit up at night before we headed back to the metro station. We ended up eating dinner at our hotel. I tried the Cacia e Pepe here but it wasn't quite the same as in Siena, unfortunately. 

Us in front of the Colosseum at Night

The floor of the Temple
of Romulus

Artifacts inside of Temple of Romulus

Bust of Julius Caesar inside
of Temple of Romulus

Artifacts inside of Temple of Romulus