Bwah haha! Rome... slightly intoxicated (but written earlier)
Next on our list of European must-sees was Roma. Rome’s an impressive place, crammed full of culture, religion and tourists. A healthy intolerance of other tourists is something to cultivate while you’re travelling. Lots of people make the age old choice for intolerance on the basis of race when deciding exactly which tourists one dislikes the most. A common theme is “oh those damn Americans”, which is followed closely by “urgh the Germans! Don’t get me started on the Germans”. For me it’s mostly, “Argh! I hate those guys who got here before me!”
Anyway, back to the culture and religion. We saw all the major sites in Rome/Vatican City. On our first day we got up early and joined the line for the Vatican Museum, which was basically awesome. They had a really great Audioguide (almost all wheat, little chaff) which took you room by room explaining exhibitions with the option of listening to further info on almost anything you laid your eyes on. It’s pretty cool when you’re looking around and thinking, “Wow, this is the real Sistine Chapel” or, “Wow, that’s all been painted by Raphael.” The problem with all this incredible art is that after a while you start to get overwhelmed by it/feel physically assaulted by it. I remember walking between the Raphael rooms in this really plain concrete corridor and having this sudden sensation of relief, before plunging back into the eye bleed inducing ART. Another problem with seeing this sort of thing is that when I go to any other church/palace/place with decorations, I’m kind of like, “yeah that’s alright, but it’s not Michelangelo, is it?”
After the museum we popped around to St Peter’s Basilica which is huge and amazing and worth seeing and basically good. We wandered through but failed to find our way up to the dome and on to the roof so we returned here on our last day in Rome as well to climb up to the top. The views from the top are also basically good.
The following day was our day off (Sunday appropriately enough) where the plan was to take a rest from travelling and do as little as possible. However, I thought that since I was in my religious Mecca, I should take the opportunity to go to mass. This led to the infamous Pope Mass saga, where I said to Giffy that I’d probably be about two hours and I ended up being there for around four. This was largely due to the fact the mass was dedicated mostly to the canonisation of 4 new saints - from Switzerland, from Ecuador, from Napoli and from India (and apparently the India subcontinents first saint which I was surprised by.
A Pope Mass is an interesting beast, existing somewhere between a religious ceremony, a sports game and a rock concert. First it starts with all the people crowding in, those lucky (or fore-thinking enough) to have tickets making their way to the semi-permanent seating in the square, the rest of us just crushing up on the barriers in the apostolic mosh-pit. Then the big TV screens come on and start showing images of the different priests making there way out into centre stage, with the choirs chiming in and singing the processionals. This is, however, all simply warm up for the main attraction. Then it happens, the Pope makes his appearance. The crowd explodes with excitement; people yelling and waving flags, especially those lucky enough to be seeing him up close and personal. People assume their positions on the stage and the mass proper begins.
Almost all of it is lost on me because it’s in Latin. I’m still able to follow the flow of the mass, and I quickly realise that the people with tickets are highly factionalised, with different quarters being here to support their particular nation’s representative through his/her ascension to sainthood. Each of the saints are talked about in turn in their own language, telling the story of their lives and miracles. I can tell who they’re talking about mostly by the frantic waving of flags and shouting from each of the different quarters. Actually, I was in luck because the Indian contingent was mostly from Kerala so the portions for their saint are said in English.
The mass continues in it predictable format other then this, punctuated by the occasional cheers and almost hysterical waving and jumping around when the cameras switch from watching the priest to sweeping over the crowds and people notice they’re on Jumbo-Vision. Then comes the moment for communion. I don’t know how many people were there in St Peter’s square that day; several thousand, maybe tens of thousands, and they all wanted to get communion. To deal with the crush, scores of priests move out into the fray and deliver the host to the masses, while a select few (again, those with mad forward planning skills) are given communion from the hands of ‘God’s representative on Earth’.
To round off the mass, the Pope gives a speech in German/Spanish/English/Italian, thanking each of the groups who turn out in support of their saint for coming all this way. People again respond to their countries name being spoken with riotous vigour (“Is anybody out there from… India?” Queue roaring crowd going wild in a flurry of green, orange and white). Finally, old Papa wombles down the steps and into the Popemobile where he’s driven up and down the rows of adoring fans, waving and acknowledging all he can while everyone’s pretty happy to get to see him up close. I was probably five meters away from him myself. All in all an interesting experience.
We rounded off the rest of our Rome experience with the other famous sites like the Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain (with much coin throwing), the Spanish Steps, Tivoli and many other churches and ruins. We also ate some really good food; our favourite was the Beehive café, a pay-as-you-feel organic place which is also a hostel which we didn’t stay in but would definitely recommend (about 1 block away from the train station so easy access).
Yeah, so, Rome was pretty cool.
Anyway, back to the culture and religion. We saw all the major sites in Rome/Vatican City. On our first day we got up early and joined the line for the Vatican Museum, which was basically awesome. They had a really great Audioguide (almost all wheat, little chaff) which took you room by room explaining exhibitions with the option of listening to further info on almost anything you laid your eyes on. It’s pretty cool when you’re looking around and thinking, “Wow, this is the real Sistine Chapel” or, “Wow, that’s all been painted by Raphael.” The problem with all this incredible art is that after a while you start to get overwhelmed by it/feel physically assaulted by it. I remember walking between the Raphael rooms in this really plain concrete corridor and having this sudden sensation of relief, before plunging back into the eye bleed inducing ART. Another problem with seeing this sort of thing is that when I go to any other church/palace/place with decorations, I’m kind of like, “yeah that’s alright, but it’s not Michelangelo, is it?”
After the museum we popped around to St Peter’s Basilica which is huge and amazing and worth seeing and basically good. We wandered through but failed to find our way up to the dome and on to the roof so we returned here on our last day in Rome as well to climb up to the top. The views from the top are also basically good.
The following day was our day off (Sunday appropriately enough) where the plan was to take a rest from travelling and do as little as possible. However, I thought that since I was in my religious Mecca, I should take the opportunity to go to mass. This led to the infamous Pope Mass saga, where I said to Giffy that I’d probably be about two hours and I ended up being there for around four. This was largely due to the fact the mass was dedicated mostly to the canonisation of 4 new saints - from Switzerland, from Ecuador, from Napoli and from India (and apparently the India subcontinents first saint which I was surprised by.
A Pope Mass is an interesting beast, existing somewhere between a religious ceremony, a sports game and a rock concert. First it starts with all the people crowding in, those lucky (or fore-thinking enough) to have tickets making their way to the semi-permanent seating in the square, the rest of us just crushing up on the barriers in the apostolic mosh-pit. Then the big TV screens come on and start showing images of the different priests making there way out into centre stage, with the choirs chiming in and singing the processionals. This is, however, all simply warm up for the main attraction. Then it happens, the Pope makes his appearance. The crowd explodes with excitement; people yelling and waving flags, especially those lucky enough to be seeing him up close and personal. People assume their positions on the stage and the mass proper begins.
Almost all of it is lost on me because it’s in Latin. I’m still able to follow the flow of the mass, and I quickly realise that the people with tickets are highly factionalised, with different quarters being here to support their particular nation’s representative through his/her ascension to sainthood. Each of the saints are talked about in turn in their own language, telling the story of their lives and miracles. I can tell who they’re talking about mostly by the frantic waving of flags and shouting from each of the different quarters. Actually, I was in luck because the Indian contingent was mostly from Kerala so the portions for their saint are said in English.
The mass continues in it predictable format other then this, punctuated by the occasional cheers and almost hysterical waving and jumping around when the cameras switch from watching the priest to sweeping over the crowds and people notice they’re on Jumbo-Vision. Then comes the moment for communion. I don’t know how many people were there in St Peter’s square that day; several thousand, maybe tens of thousands, and they all wanted to get communion. To deal with the crush, scores of priests move out into the fray and deliver the host to the masses, while a select few (again, those with mad forward planning skills) are given communion from the hands of ‘God’s representative on Earth’.
To round off the mass, the Pope gives a speech in German/Spanish/English/Italian, thanking each of the groups who turn out in support of their saint for coming all this way. People again respond to their countries name being spoken with riotous vigour (“Is anybody out there from… India?” Queue roaring crowd going wild in a flurry of green, orange and white). Finally, old Papa wombles down the steps and into the Popemobile where he’s driven up and down the rows of adoring fans, waving and acknowledging all he can while everyone’s pretty happy to get to see him up close. I was probably five meters away from him myself. All in all an interesting experience.
We rounded off the rest of our Rome experience with the other famous sites like the Colosseum, the Forum, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain (with much coin throwing), the Spanish Steps, Tivoli and many other churches and ruins. We also ate some really good food; our favourite was the Beehive café, a pay-as-you-feel organic place which is also a hostel which we didn’t stay in but would definitely recommend (about 1 block away from the train station so easy access).
Yeah, so, Rome was pretty cool.