Day 8: Thursday, October 6, 2016: Rome
We will board the bus this morning to visit the world’s largest museum in the world’s smallest country. The Vatican is a vast complex where we will see some amazing art, both in the museum and in the Sistene Chapel, where Michelangelo spent four years on the ceiling alone. St. Peter’s Basilica was built over the site of the Apostle Peter’s martyrdom and has been added on to many times since Constantine’s original basilica. One of the highlights is Michelangelo’s Pieta, which he carved when he was only 25. Bernini’s Piazza San Pietro holds 300,000 comfortably and is the same size and dimensions as the Colosseum. The rest of the day is at leisure, before dinner at our hotel. (B/D)
Notes from the travelers:
Wonderful tour of the Vatican Museums and St Peters Basilica today! We had a guide who brought out the classical interest points and who said that he enjoyed having a group who already understand and knew the background when he mentioned places like Troy or figures like Laocoon and Apollo.
It was raining heavily when we exited the Basilica, so we took the metro back to the hotel for lunch and a change of clothes, and then set out on our own explorations to the Trevi Fountain, the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Pantheon, and shopping in the Piazza Navona (we got stuck for quite awhile in a leather/stationary shop). Molly, Braeden, and Makana took turns for part of the time and directed the group--they did a great job using a map and figuring out the metro system.
Off to Florence tomorrow!
Another note from the travelers (Brianne):
This morning we headed off on a bus towards Vatican City. We started our tour in a long hall of Roman statues, all wonderfully preserved, which were some of the first pieces to be added to the Vatican Museum's collection. We passed through two ornately decorated hallways one containing newly cleaned painted maps of Italy and the second containing huge tapestries lining the walls. After passing through numerous other elegantly decorated hallways and rooms filled with marble statues and painted ceilings, we made it to the small staircase leading to the Sistine Chapel. We encountered a massive crowd of people in the chapel, which proved to make exiting quite burdensome. But the crowds didn't take away from the superb works of art that were the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Once we left the Sistine Chapel, we made our way to the huge building of Saint Peter's Basilica. Our guide took us beneath the building itself, through what used to be the Old St. Peter's Basilica, but is now used as a cemetery for the popes as well as being where we presume the remains of the Apostle Peter was buried. After braving a comparatively smaller crowd of people trying to climb another set of stairs, we stepped in the main building itself. It's high arches and columns in addition to its huge dome and the smaller domes surrounding it created a surreal effect. We saw what we at first assumed to be huge paintings but ended up being mosaics made with tiny tiles and extreme attention to detail (or as our guide called them "high definition mosaics). As we left the Basilica we saw that it was raining incredibly hard, so we had to cancel our plans to shop on our walk home and tried to get to the nearest metro station as quickly as we possibly could.
After our train ride we made a quick stop at our hotel and spilt into smaller groups to find lunch. Unsurprisingly, most of us wanted a taste of authentic Italian pizza and wound up at two different pizza shops. After meeting up again we took the metro to see the Trevi Fountain and once we got off we were guided by Makana, who navigated the Italian streets for us (with some help from Dr. Wilson).
After we left the fountain we headed towards the Panetheon. While it wasn't as vast as St. Peter's, the huge building was certainly impressive with it's large statues of Roman gods and high ceiling.
We then headed for the Piazza Navona to go shopping and got to go into a leather shop, a gelato store, a pasta store, a jewelry shop, and numerous souvenir shops. On our walk back to the hotel we went into a few other beautiful churches and many stands selling art on the streets.
All of the sights and churches that we saw today were breathtaking, and displayed the amazing talents of Italian artists and architects.