Day 3: Rome

550 stairs and a little bit of claustrophobia later, I stood on top of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. How did I end up there? Let me tell you a story...

Using every ounce of willpower I had, I woke up and dressed at at 8am (Don't judge, ok? I have jet lag issues!). I put on some new pin-strip wool dress pants, my favorite dress shirt, and a tie. Today, I was going to Roman Catholicism's most revered sites and I wanted to make sure I didn't offend anyone.

Finding the metro closed for repairs, I walked to Vatican City - its only a mile or two away. I hopped into the line that said "St. Peter's Basilica" with oodles of other people and thought I'd be in in no time. Ha!

Remember that I said that I dressed up? Imagine my (moderate) surprise to find that most people were dressed very casually, the women were being constantly reminded to cover their shoulders and other exposed areas, and that the idea of what "sacred" implies was completely lost. And these were by and large not Americans! I will spare the reader of many further social or moral critique.

It took about two hours to finally reach the hidden ticket window. Then, you travel up the hundreds of stairs to the inside rim of the dome overlooking the interior of the basilica. Finally, many more stairs later up hallways diminishing at strange angles, you arrive at the pinnacle, the cupola. It was pretty cool. It was hard to stop thinking about how much my feet hurt though.

I made it to the interior of the basilica and looked around for a little while. I was on a tight time budget because I wanted to hit the Vatican Museums - which includes the Sistine Chapel - and an art exhibit on the life and works of Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti.

I hurried over to the Vatican Museums, got lost (of course) trying to find the Sistine Chapel. There is no photography allowed in the Sistine Chapel, which is fine by me. Any photo I could have taken would not have done it justice, nor would it have been nearly as good as what I can find online in 0.17 seconds (thanks, Google).

The rest of the Vatican Museums were really interesting as well. Here are a few favs:

To the right you can see an angel taking shape. This was the model used by Bernini to cast bronze statues: terra cotta, wood, and wire.

Directly below you will see a (rather poor) photo of a master Caravaggio work, The Entombment:













Last, but certainly not least, I stumbled upon the Frabergé egg. Yes, that one...from Ocean's 12. It was very cool. All I have to say after seeing the dozen or so jewelled eggs the Romanovs commissioned is that Czars really knew how to do Easter eggs.





My legs felt like they were cramping up ever since I arrived at St. Peter's earlier in the day, so mozzied on over to the gellateria with the soy-based gellato, read my book on the steps to the fountain in front of the Pantheon, had a pizza for dinner, and came back to the hotel a little early.

That's okay though because tomorrow I'm up early for a new adventure in a new place. That's right, I'm up bright and early to catch a train to Pisa for the weekend.

Ciao!

Rome: Day 2

I was still asleep when someone came to clean my room this morning. Good thing then woke me up or I might have slept all day. That would have been one waste of a day.

I had initially thought to tour St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine chapel, and the Vatican Museum today. Sleeping through half of it forced me to rearrange those plans. Instead, I went to the Palantino (seat of the Roman government and palaces), the Pantheon, several piazzi, and the outside of St. Peter's. One of the best surprises that I had today was that there is a special exhibit of works by Caravaggio going on. Guess what's on my list for tomorrow.

The Palantino is a crumbling reminder of the glory of Imperial Rome. Vistas like the one in the photo to the right cause the viewer to imagine what it must have been like to have been Nero or Vespastian or Caludius.

I had always thought that the glorious, Roman palaces were all stone. I felt a little deceived when I realized today that most things appear to have been made with brick and covered with stone or stucco. Hence, all of the brickwork in the photo.

Also, as an aside, I finally found a good retort of economists and there notions about sunk costs. You see, I bought a ticket for entrance to the Colosseum yesterday. The ticket also allowed me to visit the Palantino. I had not originall planned to visit it, as I was not familiar with it but thought I might as well get my money's worth. That is what economists would call irrational behavior because the price of the ticket was a sunk cost. However, I, and most ever other sane, non-economist in the world see it as a fixed cost. A fixed cost is a cost of operation that does not vary. Spreading the cost of the fixed cost over more items produced or meaningful activities drives what is referred to as economies of scale. Meaning, that people are acting rationally when they eat more when they go to buffets, or see more sights in Rome.

I'm fairly certain that most people reading this couldn't care less about sunk or fixed costs, so I'll move on to the Pantheon. Imagine my dismay as I struggle through the maze of Rome's streets, give up and have a gelatto (made from soy!), and then come upon the object of my search only to find that its been converted into the St. Mary and the Martyrs Basilica! I should have remembered, but I was hoping to see the cool statues of the Roman gods. Oh well. It wasn't a total bust - it was the Pantheon after all.

Soon after looking around the Pantheon, I came across Piazza Navona. It was immediately apparent that it was the cool place to be. There were several guitarists, caricature artists, and, of course, a giant fountain. I wandered around and watched the artists go to work giving people buck teeth and oversized features. I briefly considered getting one done of myself, but I think you would have enjoyed that too much.

By this point, I was exhausted. I was near the Tevere and decided that I would find a place to read for a while. I found a nice place next to the Bernini bridge that leads to Castel Sant'Angelo on the steps leading down to the river (the photo on the right is from my reading spot). It was pretty great.

I walked around the castle and then on over to St. Peter's. No big deal. Actually, I was thinking a lot about how we as people like to have a sense of place, an anchor. For Mormons, its Temple Square in Salt Lake; for Muslims, its Mecca; and for Catholics, its St. Peter's. However, if there's one thing I've learned in my travels to the Holy Land and now to Rome, its that either I have a gypsy soul and places can't touch my heart or that my faith and heart tell me that all the stone and artistry in the world cannot build those things that are most important: truth, trust, and friendship.

Its not that I didn't marvel at its glory, the outstretching arms of the Bernini collonades, the Maderno portico, or the dome of Michelangelo's construction because I most certainly did. It was all very impressive.

I think there are a thousand other things I could say, but I should try to keep these posts to a manageable length for the reader's benefit as well as my own (read: its getting late). Hope you enjoyed day with me!

Da Roma, ciao!