Rome - Day 1

So we said goodbye to our new friend Kathy at the cruise ship

 

and then headed to the train terminal to head to Rome.  Thankfully when we got there a train was leaving within 10 minutes.  So we hopped on and rode the train - it took about an hour.  One thing I found odd was that they don't announce what stop it is.   You have to keep looking at the signs as you are coming into the stop and make sure you get off at the right one.  In Germany they are always announcing the stops.  A little different.  Then it wasn't far to our hotel, but we decided with all our luggage and the kids that we were going to grab a taxi - it was well worth the 5 euros ($6.50 to everybody back in the states).  We were early to the hotel, but thankfully the room was open.  So we hauled all of our stuff up and got ready to head over to the Vatican.  I was told to pre-buy tickets so you didn't have to wait in line.  So we took our map and started walking over there.  Well it was a lot farther than we thought, but on the way we saw some really cool things.  Rome is AMAZING!!  It is like around every corner you find some old statue, some history and more.  I really was overwhelmed with it all and knew there was no way to adequately see all of Rome with a day and a half.  We were only going to be able to hit the high lights - the must sees.

 

 

 

These two were on the corner of an intersection - there were four total.  Random and not really sure what they are and what they are there for, but neat nonetheless.  Then we walked a little farther (and by this time the boys said they were tired, little did they know, it was only the beginning of A LOT of walking) and saw a park and this huge statue was in it.

 

He was King of Sardinia, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, Prince of Piedmont, Duke of Savoy and Duke of Genoa, 7th Prince of Carignano and Earl of Barge.  As you can see he was a lot of things, but what he was most to Italy is he was the first el Italy, then a monarchy constitutional which was the fundamental law and founding of the Italian state.

 

Then no joke about a block down from that statue was this one.  This one was built for Pope Pius VII who reigned during the war with Napoleon

 

There were about five statues like this on the way down some steps (where the boys took a break).  We would have missed a ton of things had we not walked.  The Vatican was pretty far away from where we were so I broke down and said we could take a taxi the rest of the way since the boys were going to have to walk through all of that too!  Aren't I a nice mom?!?  :-)  I did make a mistake, when I said the Vatican - he took us to St Peter's Basilica and I didn't realize my mistake until after we waited in a long line to get through security to see it.  So our tickets were for 2 pm and it was a long walk over there.  We decided to check out St Peter's Basilica first and then hope we could still use our tickets.

So you know me and I have to put a little bit of history in this, so if you don't care skip down to the pictures :-)  Nearly 2000 years ago, this area was the site of Nero's Circus - Roman chariot racecourse.  One of those that was killed here, in about AD 65, was Peter, Jesus' right-hand man.  The church was begun in 1506 by architect Bramante and was succeeded by Michelangelo and a number of other architects.  Michelangelo (who was 71 years old when the pope persuaded him to take over the church project) designed the dome which soars higher than a football field on end, 430 feet from the floor of the cathedral to the top of the lantern.  We didn't go up in the dome because of the time and energy of the boys - but it looked magnificent!

 

 

This is only the atrium (which is bigger than most churches).  You can see the detail in everything that they did, the ceiling and the columns, they adorned every part of this building.  The inside is HUGE!!  David said when he walked in the door it took his breath away.  Words can't describe how beautiful, amazing, mind boggling it was.  It is two football fields long and almost as wide as the wingspan of a 747.  

 

 

The base of the dome is ringed with a gold banner telling us in massive blue letters why the church is so important.  You can see part of it here on the top of the picture.  You can also see some of the amazing statues in the walls.  To give you a little perspective the bottom one on the left is probably about 8 feet tall or more.  (I am not real good with guessing heights and we couldn't get close enough to measure next to David)

 

Here is a picture of the dome looking up at it.....amazing!!!  Right below the dome is the main altar (the white slab with cross and candle sticks - you can barely see it at the bottom).

 

 

This is only used if the pope himself says mass.  It would be lost but Bernini built the seven-story bronze canopy.   Bernini is the man most responsible for the interior decoration of the church (you will hear more about him on my next post).

 

Here is a closer look at some of the bronze work on the canopy.

 

 

Michelangelo was 24 when he completed this Pieta (pee-ay-TAH) of Mary with the dead body of Christ taken from the cross, done for the holy year 1500.  On May 23, 1972 a madman with a hammer entered St Peter's and began hacking away at it.  The damage was repaired, but it is now behind bullet proof glass.

 

 

They had many ceilings like this in the church - the hours it would take to paint just one.

 

This is to give you some perspective on how big everything was in there.  You can see the people at the bottom and this is the normal size throughout the church.

 

 

Over where we couldn't go were some musicians.  It was beautiful, especially the way the acoustics brought it out.  The organ was also playing with them - I loved it!!!

 

I thought this was just a sweet statue.  There are so many pictures I wanted to put in the blog, but I had to cut it down some, but I really loved this one!

 

The boys wanted to take pictures also and this is from one of their perspectives.  I would have never noticed the carvings on the roof over hang had they not taken this one and it also shows how huge it is to children (and adults a like).

 

David wore his Seahawk shirt, hoping to bring them a little luck this year.  :-)

 

The guards in their uniforms - they look like they should be in a circus.  :-)

 

 

The boys outside St Peter's - still smiling thank goodness!!!  The square symbolized the arms of the church welcoming everyone, it was designed by Bernini.  There are 284 columns, 56 feet high and topping them are Bernini's 140 saints, each 10 feet tall.  The obelisk in the center is 90 feet solid granite weighing more than 300 tons.

 

 

A closer look at the some of the statues

 

This is on one side of St Peter's

 

Of course the boys had to do their pouty lips :-)

 

This was after we did the Vatican touring and were heading back to find some dinner, it is of St Peter's - it is massive and beautiful!!!

 

Then after that we headed to the Vatican Museum.  It was a bit of a walk and lots and lots of people selling things.  But we finally made it.  Luckily the line wasn't too long to get in and they didn't care about our time even though we were about 45 minutes late.  By this time the boys were a little tired, but I was bribing them with ice cream after this museum.  It worked a little.  :-)

 

 

Michael was getting to be done and wouldn't take pictures for me, but AJ still would.  :-)  We started in the Egyptian rooms.  One thing they say about the Vatican is you can spend days in there looking at everything and I figured I had less than two hours of their attention span left, if not less.

 

 

Michael really tired - The boys sat down while I went around and took pictures.  :-)

 

 

This is Apollo, the god of the sun and of music and hunting.  They say he had just spotted his prey and is grabbing an (missing) arrow for his (missing) bow.  This was considered the most perfect work of art in the world when it was found.

 

 

This is the river god that was part of a fountain, the basin of which is a sarcophagus dating from 170-180 AD.  It is also said this pose inspired Michelangelo's Adam in the Sistine Chapel.

 

 

This is Laocoon, the high priest of Troy, who warned his fellow Trojans: "beware of Greeks bearing gifts."  They had brought the Trojan Horse to the gates and he tried to warn his people.  But the gods wanted the Greeks to win, so they sent huge snakes to crush Laocoon and his two sons to death.  It was lost for more than a thousand years and then found near the Coliseum and paraded through Rome, Michelangelo saw it and it was a revelation to him.  Two  years later he started work on the Sistine Chapel.

 

 

AJ with one of the "guard dogs" 

 

 

Belvedere Torso - this is the remains of an ancient statue of Hercules seated on a lion skin.  Michelangelo loved this old rock, he'd caress this statue and tell people, "I am the pupil of the Torso."

 

 

This is a bronze statue of Hercules found in 1864.  At the moment of discovery the statue was lying horizontally in a trench and covered by a slab of travertine on which the letters FCS had been cut.  This told us the statue had been struck by lightning and, following Roman custom, had been granted a ritual burial together with the remains of a lamb.

 

 

There were two of these sarcophagi made out of marble in the room for the Roman emperor Constantine's mother Helena and daughter.  This is the daughter's one.  They were never used.  It is decorated with a mix of Christian and pagan themes.

 

 

This is the school of Athens done by Raphael.  In the center are Plato and Aristotle.  It also has Socrates and Euclid.  Thinkers are to the left and scientists to the right, with Plato and Aristotle dead center.  After finishing this he went into the Sistine Chapel and saw what Michelangelo was doing and started to beef up his delicate, graceful styles to a more heroic level.  He returned and added one more figure to this scene, Michelangelo, the brooding, melancholy figure in front, leaning on a block of marble. 

 

 

I thought this was neat - if you look at the people they look 3-D but it is a painting. 

 

This was the amazing ceiling in the tapestry room - not one inch of the Vatican was undecorated. 

 

 

This was a cool sculpture that AJ asked me to take a picture of in the middle of a courtyard in the Vatican Museum.

 

At one point, you had to go out on a small walkway to get to the next place and this was the view from the Vatican museum.

 

The last thing we saw in the Vatican was the Sistine Chapel.  You aren't allowed to take any pictures and you have to be quiet.  Without our guide book by Rick Steve's I wouldn't have known exactly what I was looking at.  It is a masterpiece!!!  Truly amazing!

 

 

This is a picture that I took off of a website - nothing compared to standing under the real thing. Amazing four years of solid work to finish this, arms above your head the whole time.  I can't even imagine.

 

These are the steps to exit out of the museum - can I tell you the boys had so much fun running down them!!!  I did too of course!!!  So now I had to hunt down some ice cream, they did pretty good the whole way through.

 

And we were successful!!! 

 

This was actually really good ice cream.  I saw a line to it when we passed it on our way into the Vatican Museum and there was still one when we got there and it never was any shorter the whole time we were eating our ice cream.  I found out afterwards it was mentioned in our guide book as a great place for ice cream.  :-)  Then we were trying to figure out where to go for dinner.  So we looked in our handy guide book and found a few we thought were close by.  Well the first couple were a bust so we started walking. 

 

I saw this and wanted to go and check it out.  It is the Castel Saint Angelo.  It was built as a tomb for the emperor, used through the Middle Ages as a castle, prison and place of last refuge for popes under attack and today a museum.  It was closed when we got there, but the boys probably wouldn't have lasted one more museum today.  All the bridges had different themes there, this one was of angels.

 

I caved one more time and we took a taxi from that bridge over to the Spanish Steps.  It is supposed to have a great night life.  We didn't stay around to find that out.

 

This is the Sinking Boat Fountain, built by Bernini or his father, Pietro, powered by an aqueduct.  All of Rome's fountains are aqueduct-powered.  Here I met another American who had been teaching at a college for three years in Rome and asked him where locals go to eat.  He told me two places and we started walking for the first one.

 

 

On our trek we found this - I couldn't help myself!  We did find the first restaurant, but you have to have reservations, so we just found another one right down the road. 

 

We bought a bottle of water and then flavored it with mio - They said they were drinking wine and thought it was hilarious!!

 

He has some of the best expressions!!  His "wine"

 

Then we started walking back to the hotel - this is when it was just starting to get dark and the night life was coming alive.

 

I just thought this was a cool door.  I again promised the boys ice cream, but we wanted to find a place close to our hotel.  So we went hunting.

 

On the way we passed this church as the sun was going down and I thought it was a cool picture!  We did succeed and found more ice cream, but it wasn't that great.  But good enough and then back to the hotel for some much needed showers and sleep.  The next day was jam packed with lots to see and do.  I tried to trim down my photos, believe me I had over a 100 picked out so I am sorry if this one is a little long, but I hope you enjoyed it.