Roma

We traveled from Paris to Rome on Thursday. Our flight was out of Orly, Paris's smaller airport on an airline called "EasyJet." It was a bit like Southwest Airlines in that there were no assigned seats, but rather a sort of cattle call when it was time to board. Our flight was uneventful and when we arrived in Rome, we had no problem finding a taxi and getting to the hotel. Once settled into the hotel, we napped for a bit then met our friends Gretchen and Barry for dinner. Gretchen and Barry have a son on Riley's baseball team so we got to know each other well over the course of the season. It was so wonderful to see them here in Rome. They are planning to spend the next school year here, so are here looking for an apartment this week.

On Friday, we got up and headed out to Vatican City. We took a taxi to St. Peter's Square. Once we got out of the taxi, we walked into a huge crowd of people and were approached several times by people who were offering to give us a personal tour in English. I had pre-purchased our tickets to get into the museums and the Sistine Chapel, so we were able to avoid most of the lines. When we found the entrance for the pre-paid tickets, we just walked in, gave the ticket person our validation number and then walked into the museums. Basically, you have to walk through the museum to get to the Sistine Chapel. Each long room has a ceiling that is decorated differently. Although each was breathtaking, I was most in awe of a painting style that looked so three-dimensional that I thought our eyes were deceiving us. It was amazing. Riley was convinced that it was three dimensional and actually argued with me for several minutes until we went to the side of the room and then looked up at the curve where the wall and ceiling met. It was from this vantage point where you could actually see that the surface was flat instead of three dimensional. The amount of time and talent that went into these rooms is astounding.

Every room brought us a little closer to the Sistine Chapel until we finally (after an hour or so) found ourselves standing in the middle looking up at Michelangelo's beautiful fresco that he started in 1508. I must say, it was not as I had expected, however. The room is long, dimly lit, and somewhat narrow with a very high ceiling. I sort of felt like I was in a box full of people. All four walls and the ceiling, of course, were elaborately painted with 15th and 16th century Italian Renaissance paintings (or murals). The fresco on the ceiling is the most famous part of this room even though it is all breathtaking. The center of the fresco is the part that is intended to depict "Creation" where the two fingertips are about to touch. I was a bit surprised by how small that part of the story on the ceiling was from that perspective. I am so used to seeing this part of the famous ceiling blown up that I had almost forgotten that it is all a part of the larger story. I half expected it to encompass most of the ceiling, I guess. Instead, I found myself searching for it within the fresco.

As you move your way through the Sistine Chapel, there are two exits, but one is marked "No entry except for those with special credentials." We went out through the appropriate exit and made our way toward what we thought was the direction of St. Peter's Basilica. At one point, we stopped and asked one of the guards a question about St. Peter's and he told us that the easiest way was to go out through the Sistine Chapel, then proceeded to stick his bottom lip out as if to say that he was sad for us because we were going to have to take the really long way around to get there. Not to be outsmarted by a guard, we decided to start the whole tour through the museums again so that we could access St. Peter's through the Sistine Chapel. This time, instead of gawking at all the statues and artwork, we just pushed our way through the crowds and returned to the Sistine Chapel within about 20 minutes. We made our way through the box of people and were once again faced with the two doors. We chose the door on the left again because of the sign at the door on the right stating that we could not use it without the appropriate credentials. We walked a short distance before we decided that we were just repeating our earlier mistake. We turned around and started pushing our way upstream until we were dumped back into the Chapel. This time, however, we joined a tour group who apparently had the appropriate credentials and exited on the right. We played along until we found ourselves at the giant doors of St. Peter's. Success! - Except for the fact that Riley is convinced he owes someone 50 Hail Mary's for "cheating" the system...

Unfortunately, I am not talented enough to come up with the words to accurately describe St. Peter's Basilica. It is absolutely huge and awe inspiring. In fact, it is the largest church in the world (with the possible exception of one that was built in 1989 somewhere in South Africa, I think). Each Pope is represented in the church and Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bernini have all made their marks on it. High above the floor are inscriptions that include passages about St. Peter from the Bible. Although it is not readily apparent from the floor, each letter in the inscriptions is 7 feet tall. The designers considered the perspective of a person standing in the basilica and looking upward. The result is the perception that the structure is not nearly as huge as it is.

After taking in the splendor of St. Peters, we headed off to the oldest church in the world - the Pantheon. Some of Italy's most famous kings and artists are buried here, including Raphael. It was orginally a pagan temple, but in 609 A.D. became a Christian church. By comparison, it has nothing on St. Peter's, but is still regal in its circular simplicity. Its domed ceiling was once covered in bronze, but the precious material, almost 450,000 pounds, was removed in the early 1600's and used by Bernini in St. Peter's. Light and air enter through an opening in the ceiling (an oculus, almost 9 meters across), through which the sky seems to ascend to the temple, and in turn prayers freely rise to the heavens. Rain water enters the structure through this opening, but the floor is sloped to drains that quickly remove the water.

By this time in the day, we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel. At one point during the day, we discovered the sweet goodness of gellato. Riley and I are convinced that limone (lemon) is the best flavor, whereas Ange favors the berry flavors. It was a wonderful treat on a very hot day.