Roma: Day Three

Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Trastevere and the Jewish Ghetto.

We started the day by getting up early and heading off to the Vatican Museum. We were generously given a private tour as a gift from my aunt and uncle, which allowed us to enter before the time of general admission. We didn't have it entirely to ourselves, but compared to the crowd that is there during normal hours, we were spoiled with plenty of room to view the museum. Our tour guide was wonderful and helped us digest all of the fantastic art that is within those walls. What a collection! You are allowed to take photographs, but I found that I didn't take many, it was a little overwhelming with so many masterpieces. I found myself thinking, what good is it to take a picture that won’t do this justice? Instead I mostly listened, looked and made memories.

An Italian style garden is organized and simple, as opposed to an English style garden is full of plants everywhere.

The Courtyard

Sphere within a Sphere, donated to the Pope and symbolizes the world (outer sphere)
and the church with the world (inner sphere).

The Pigna (The Pine Cone) originally stood near the Pantheon next to
the Temple of Isis. It was moved to the courtyard of the old St. Peter's Basilica
 during the Middle Ages and then moved again, in 1608, to its present
location in the Vatican courtyard.

The hall of ancient Roman statues. What a great collection!
(Notice they all have their heads!)

Ancient Roman sarcophagus of a woman who wanted to be remembered as being as beautiful as Venus
(hence the apple in her hand).

This bust is quite amazing because it still has the original painted eyes.

These too, still have their painted eyes. Super rare!

At one point all of the nude statues were given leaf covers,
so that they would be more appropriate for the Pope's house.

My favorite from the Vatican: The School of Athens by Raphael.

The Sistine Chapel was a little crowded, but not nearly as bad as I've heard it gets. We had room to move around, and didn't get pushed around. They even turned the lights on for a little while. What an interesting story behind those ceiling and walls (of course, no pictures allowed in there)!

Next up was St. Peter’s Basilica, the largest/longest in the world. What an interesting building. There was a section that was roped off because only the pope can walk there… la tee da ;). We toured the crypt as well as the main floor and learned some interesting things about past popes and Catholicism. 

Where only the pope walks.

The Swiss Guard has the responsibility of protecting the pope.
Aren't their outfits awesome! Poor guys ;)

The office of the pope, where he waves to the people every Wednesday.

The pope's house/palace.

St. Peter's Basilica and square

What a treat that morning was! Having a private tour was absolutely amazing and we felt completely blessed and spoiled to have had such a fantastic experience. Some friends of ours toured it later that week and said it was so crowded that it was miserable. They said they felt like they were on a conveyor belt or being herded like cattle.

After we said goodbye to our tour guide, we headed off to the southern part of town, the Trastevere, to get some lunch. We were starving at this point, because we’d gotten up before places were open for breakfast and were on our feet all morning. Everything near the Vatican was really touristy so we walked (and walked, and walked) in what felt like circles until finally settling on a place that was just about to open. It turned out to be fantastic and was worth all of that walking.

We lingered a bit to give our feet a break before heading back to the hotel to freshen up (and we ended up taking a nap). It was dark before we headed out on our self-guided/Rick Steve’s walking tour of the Trastevere (trahs-TAY-veh-ray). On this walk we saw the starting place of Rome, the Isola Tiberina and the Tiber River, as well as the Church of st. Cecilia, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and the Church of Santa maria in Trastevere (I’m guessing there are other churches of Santa Maria, hence the specification of ‘in Trastevere’ in the title). This part of town was lively and full of character.

The Church of St. Cecilia

The tomb of St. Cecilia, the church is supposed to be located here because
this was the location of her house, which she used as a house church.

We saw a replica of this statue in the catacombs we toured, which was where she was originally buried.
She was martyred for her belief in one God, three parts (which is why she has one finger showing on one hand
and three on the other -thumb, pointer and middle). They say, that when they opened her tomb
in the catacombs, they saw her body just like this for only a moment, and then it turned to dust.

I love the prayer candles in catholic churches.

The cutest little cookie shop in Trastevere. Sells all kinds of
delicious traditional Italian cookies.

Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, with the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere behind us.

Amazing 12th century and earlier mosaics

This mosaic is said to be 8th to 10th century and reportedly is one of the first to portray Mary next
to the throne with Jesus in heaven. 

I don't know if you can see the tiny stones that make up the mosaic, but it is incredible that these works
are so old, so well preserved and so detailed from tiny little tiles.

I'm not sure what this is about, but everywhere around Rome you would
see locks on fences, lamp posts etc.

From our walk through Trastevere we crossed back over the Tiber River and the Isola Tiberina to the area that housed the Jewish Ghetto until 1870 (Italy’s unification). We saw the Synagogue, Largo 16 Ottobre 1943 (a square named for the day that Nazi trucks parked here demanding 110 pounds of gold in 24 hours, or else they would take the Jews to the concentration camps – which they did later anyway), Portico d’Ottavia (built by soon-to-be-emperor Agustus was a passageway to temples and libraries. You also could see the street level in ancient times), as well as building fronts and narrow streets lined with kosher restaurants to remind you of the Ghetto times. 

The Jewish Synagogue 

Portico d’Ottavia

Street level in Roman times

And exhausted, we found our way back to our hotel to crash. Tomorrow we switch hotels to meet up with some friends that are coming before we all go to Israel. Buonanotte! (Good night!)

Roma: Day Two

From One End of Town to the Other

Borghese Gallery and Ancient Appian Way 

Today we got up early (you’ll see that is a theme) to tour the Borghese Gallery Museum in the Villa Borghese. The kid that runs our hotel Our hotel concierge said that it was a 35 minute walk to the museum. We also had to arrive 30 minutes prior to our reservation, in order to claim our tickets. After about five minutes of brisk walking our calves were killing us and we could tell that we weren't covering enough ground fast enough. So we caught a cab, which ended up being a way better idea. It was a long way (35 minutes?) and the cab was totally affordable. We made it with several minutes to spare.

Of course, there are no pictures allowed inside the museum. If I was ever going to break that rule and snap a photo of one piece of art, it would have been in this gallery. They have several sculptures by a seventeenth century artist, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. He was incredible and one of the first in his time to make masterpieces out of one solid piece of marble. His father was also an artist that sculpted using this technique, but the son really made the marble come alive in a way that no one else really had. One statue in particular was unbelievably breathtaking, and I wish I could have photographed it. Apollo and Daphne You’ll have to look at pictures online, but trust me it was amazing in person. The intricacy of the leaves and bodies, it is incredible that it all came from one solid piece of marble. The leaves are so thin they are almost translucent. Incredible. 

The entire house was stacked with fantastic art, but in a way that was digestible. We just used their audio guide, but still it was fantastic. You are only allowed 2 hours and we soaked up every second. It was interesting to hear about who requisitioned each piece and then how it came to be in the Borghese collection. Sadly, Napoleon forced his sister to sell many fantastic works of art during his time of power, and because they were sold, not exactly stolen, they weren’t required to be returned once he was conquered. I think I heard that most of them are in the Louvre. It was also sad, and interesting, to hear that so many paintings were obtained through misuse of power. The Borghese family was related to a pope, and at one point, the head of the house was a cardinal as well. They used their positions of power to extort people for the art they owned. For example, they might charge you with some crime and put you in prison, so that the price of your freedom was most of your possessions.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the museum and surrounding gardens. You could easily spend all day there.

I asked if there was a drinking fountain, the bookstore lady said, yes, just outside.

I was a little nervous. This looks like a decorative fountain, not a drinking fountain.
However, she assured me that she drinks it every day. 

The Borghese family wanted a home like no other. This was used to house exotic birds.

There were designed gardens and acres of open park.

This building was so intriguing to me, wish we'd been able to go inside.

There is even a zoo on the property!

We were just outside the old walls of Rome.

After our morning on the north end of town, we headed south to the Ancient Appian Way: Rome’s oldest and first road. I really enjoy ancient history and I was excited to see this bit of history first hand. We toured an early Christian catacomb and then walked our way up the ancient road to a little café where we had a sandwich and a cappuccino. It was a perfect afternoon.

Inside a catacomb, before I realized that no pictures were allowed. 

A reconstructed portion of the ancient road.

Ruins, ruins everywhere. There should be some sections of aqueduct out there somewhere.

Welcome to Rome, the city of headless statues.

I confess, I can't even remember what this building used to be now. Currently it's a museum.

The original portion of the Appian Way.

This guy (or girl?) was right at home outside the Appian Way Cafe. 

Delicious!

We eventually caught a bus and headed back to town to do some classic tourist sightseeing. We took the metro to the Spanish steps and walked our way down to the Trevi Fountain and on through town, eating our daily gelato. 

The Spanish Steps

Blake got suckered by the rose peddlers at the Spanish steps. 

At the top of the steps.

The view from the top.

It had just poured rain and cleared everyone out for our picture ;).
I think there is a raindrop on the lens though, right about at Blake's face.

Trevi Fountain, all lit up.

The green tree cracked me up. This is a memorial to the man who united Italy.

And then we crashed into bed! I'm behind on getting these posted, but at the end of the day I'm just completely beat!