"It's not as big as I imagined."
"Tamra, we're not even IN the Vatican yet."
"Yes we are...we walked through the stone pillars. St. Peter's Square IS in the Vatican."
"Okay, but we're just BARELY in the Vatican. It will be big, there's a whole lot more to it, you'll see..."
--Then, just as we are about to mount the stairs into St. Peter's Basilica... --
"It IS big !!!"
Our first day in Rome was spent exploring St. Peter's Basilica, hanging out in St. Peter's Square, and roaming through the Vatican Museums.
St. Peter's Basilica is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! I thought Sacre Coeur had that top honor. I've seen the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I've been inside gorgeous and ancient cathedrals in quite a few top cities in the world. But, St. Peter's...... it's indescribably, takes your breath away, magnificent. We strolled around the inside taking pictures and taking moments to just gaze at the beauty. (We learned the next day that a lot of the material used for St. Peter's came from the Colosseum and from the Forum. I can only imagine, knowing how great the basilica is, how fantastically gorgeous those places must have been in their prime.) I wish I could detail all the wonderful things we saw, all the decorations and statues, but it would take forever. It will have to do for me to say that I could easily visit Rome again and spend yet another day just sitting inside, soaking up the atmosphere.
The Vatican Museums are everything you've ever heard. Miles and miles and rooms and rooms of famous works of art. I snapped a few pictures of the ones I knew, but all I really cared about seeing, were the grand spiral staircase and the Sistine Chapel. We meandered through the museums, overwhelming our eyes with splendor. Thank goodness we shared an audio headset to guide us through and tell us what we were looking at; without it we would have been helpless. I really love museums, but there's so much art that I do not know that it's hard to appreciate it all. I feel like my eyes don't know where to look sometimes. The audio guide map showed a short cut to the Sistine Chapel (apparently we missed out on the Raphael rooms -oops!). The Sistine Chapel looks so big in pictures. Really it's smaller than All Saints' in Sewanee. Yet, it is really impressive in its' coziness. We must have spent an hour just sitting on a bench to the side staring around at the walls with our heads pressed together listening to the history behind the chapel. Guards were stationed in the room, lots of them, and they repeatedly kept shushing the crowd back into awed whispers. Although it was clearly posted, the guards had to remind people over and over not to take pictures. It was only on the other side of a wooden barrier on the far end of the room that cameras were out. I snapped two photos and then we left... After some more rooms we finally came to the exit. I took the opportunity to send a fancy postcard complete with fancy stamp. Then we walked down the famous double helix spiral staircase to exit the museum.
Even writing about it all reminds me of how tired we were by the end of the museum visit, and it was only the afternoon by then! So, what does one do when one is tired and it's not time for dinner? Well one gets gelato of course! We found the greatest little gelato place (Old Bridge) walking back down toward St. Peter's Square where they loaded our little cones to overflowing with yummy gelato for only 2 euros. We spent the time until Ash Wednesday mass enjoying our sweet treat seated beside one of the fountains in the square and reveling in the warm sunshine.
The Ash Wednesday mass in St. Peter's basilica was really nice. Even though I had no idea what they were saying it was still important and solemn and understood that it was a very important worship ceremony. The ceremony wasn't any prettier or grander than similar ones I've attended in Sewanee, but being the basilica did lend the experience a certain something special. I am quite aware that I am not Catholic, and I don't care what people think, I was SO excited to worship in the basilica and to have ashes put on my head! Just because I am a Protestant, that doesn't impede me finding meaning in such a ceremony. In fact, I quite liked celebrating Ash Wednesday. As we exited St. Peter's after mass, we were greeted by a pretty sunset to end our day at the Vatican.
For dinner we found our way to a place in the area called La Abruzzese. The waitress and matron of the establishment spoke no English, but she and I managed pretty well with my mix of broken Italian and French. Martha and I were served a wonderful meal of pizza with wine and water to drink. Both of us had no problem finishing the pizzas that were larger than our heads. Nor did we have trouble finishing the bottle of wine and the one of water. Full tummies and tired feet were what we had when we arrived back at the hostel to climb into our beds for sleep. The first long day in Rome had been lovely!
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