Lapsed Catholic enters Vatican; lightning does NOT, in fact, strike
More Italia Goodness!
Monday morning started with (free/included) breakfast in our hotel, which consisted of hard rolls, cheese, salami, ham, pastry, coffee, juice, and NUTELLA. Nom. When we'd finished breakfast, we made a detour to this grocery store near out hotel, where we bought blood orange juice (already addicted, you see), some snacks, wine, and I managed to buy shower gel without being able to read Italian, which was a potential disaster since it could have been lotion or something.
Following that, we headed to the Vatican City. We'd chosen Monday because many of the other attractions in Rome (such as the Colosseum) are closed Mondays. We also headed out kind of early, because our guidebook said the line for St. Peter's Basilica would get crazy in late morning. We took the metro to the San Pietro stop, and picked up some postcards nearby with the intention of mailing them from the Vatican post office- it being a separate country and all, they have their own stamps, which is cool in a "hey, neato" kind of way.
Being in St. Peter's Square was a bit surreal, it being one of those places you see on TV all the time that seems super far away. Here's Tom nonchalantly enjoying himself:
We got in the short line to enter the basilica and waited a few minutes to pass through a security checkpoint. In case you were curious about the rules, water bottles and umbrellas are acceptable, but swiss army knives are most certainly not.
Once inside I had to admit, as much as I disagree with the church of my childhood, they sure do know how to decorate themselves a church! In short, St. Peter's Basilica is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. Witness the fabulousness of the dome!
We walked around the inside and took in the many awesome pieces of art, including Michelangelo's Pieta. Upon exiting the basilica, we saw that the square was already getting more crowded- we'd really been fortunate to get there when we did. We saw two members of the Swiss Guard, and a group of schoolchildren wearing matching yellow hats. I had to photograph them because they reminded me of little ducklings.
We set off for the Vatican Museum, where we were reminded that our Roma Pass would not get us a discount, because "this is not Rome". Oops. It was well worth the undiscounted price- the museum was filled with amazing tapestries and frescoes, including many by Raphael, and the carrot at the end of the stick was the Sistine Chapel. You're not supposed to take pictures of the famous ceiling, and in fact, anytime a camera went off in the chapel, where we were herded like cattle, the security guards would call out "No photos!"...in English. Every time. So clearly if you were doing anything wrong, you must be American. Or British. We're bad kids, so we did sneak a few (blurry) photos, sans flash. I won't torture you with them.
We emerged from the museum to find that the sun had come out, and we headed toward the Trevi Fountain. We picked up some lunch to eat near the fountain, and then made ourselves some wishes:
We also visited Piazza Navona, and were disappointed to find that the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of Four Rivers) was being restored and was therefore hidden behind a bunch of scaffolding. We did get to see the smaller fountains, like the Fontana del Nettuno, and we visited the vendors in the Piazza.
Our next stop was one of my favorite buildings in Rome- the Pantheon. I love that it's this random Pagan temple in the middle of uber-Catholic Rome. Of course the inside is now a Catholic church too...but it's still an awesome building, especially sandwiched in the middle of so many modern ones the way it is. Also the dome has a huge hole in it that was used to look at constellations, and there are drains in the floor for when it rains.
In between attractions we passed many souvenir stands, one of which was selling calendars. A few of my favorites:
I Gatti di Roma!: Totally bored-looking domestic shorthair cats posed in front of famous landmarks in Rome.
Penises of Italy: Photos of the penises on a bunch of famous statues.
Hot priests: OK, I can't remember the actual title of this one, but there were photos of attractive young priests in their collars...or attractive young men dressed as priests. Who knows?
We headed back to our hotel around 4:30 or so to rest up before meeting a friend of Tom's family in Travestere for dinner. Well, the comedy of errors continued with that little outing. We got going a bit too late, ended up on a slow-moving bus, and realized belatedly that we'd forgotten the cell phone, so we couldn't even call and tell her we'd be late. When we arrived, about 20 minutes past our meeting time, she had already gone. Luckily a very nice man let Tom use the phone in the kitchen of his restaurant, so we let her know we'd arrived late and agreed to meet the next night. We stayed in Travestere and had dinner near the Piazza Trilusse, then returned to the Trevi Fountain for a nighttime view and...more gelato!
When we got back to our room I took two Tylenol PM. This turned out to be not the best idea ever, as you'll see in the next installment...