When in Rome

We’ve hit a few of the biggies already! Sunday we rose early and naively thought we would be in the front of the queue to get into the Vatican museum on a free day. Yeah, we were about 3 hours down the line an hour before they opened. So we bagged that idea (flexibility makes for happy vacations!) and we’ll have to do the Sistine chapel another visit. We did, however, go into St. Peter’s Basilica. It is the biggest church in the world in the smallest country in the world, in case anyone wants a little trivia fact. We of course checked out Michelangelo’s Pieta (he was 23 when he carved that sucker!) before heading up the 551 stairs to the top of the dome. Claustrophobics, beware!

Especially when you get toward the top of the dome where the walls and ceiling start to slant in on you, it can feel a bit freaky. But boy was it worth it!

We stayed to hear the Pope pontificate out his window. Everything was in Italian or maybe some Latin, so we understood about 3 words (cinque, Gesus, and bambini). An experience we’ll probably never get again, though, to hear a King address the masses from his castle. It all got me thinking, really, what does the Pope wear for pajamas?

This morning we woke up for our guided walking tour of the Colosseum and Palatine Hill and Forum. So. Cool.

We learned about the invention of elevators here (to raise animals and gladiators to arena level), the importation of exotic animals (which would you choose to fight — an angry elephant or angry tiger?), why the exits were called vomitoriums (55,000 spectators could leave in 5 minutes), and that you got free bread, free water, and free bathrooms inside (better than current tourist attractions!). Oh, and that all the white marble that used to cover the Colosseum was taken to be used in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Next up, the Palatine Hill — the birthplace of Rome. Here is where Romulus killed Remus and built the first huts 8 centuries before Christ. (The wolf suckling and raising 2 little twin boys, by the way, is probably accurate. Except use the other meaning of “wolf” which is “prostitute.”) And here is where the emperors had his grand marble-encrusted, landscaped, swimming-pooled palace. It is all now ruins, but it has an amazing view of the Forum below.

There was just too much in the Forum to know fully what we were looking at. There’s been centuries and centuries of building and looting and rebuilding and burying and building. The 2 major things we recognized were the Temple and House of Vestia surrounded by statues of the most well-known vestial virgins

and Julius Caesar’s final resting place, to which Romans still bring flowers and coins.

We ended the day with a quick trip up to the church and museum of the Capuccini (yes, the coffee drink does trace back to these monks) for the odd crypt there. No pictures were allowed inside (it is still a sacred place to the friars there), so you can visit a website for a view of what it’s like. Let me just say that it was not what I expected, and also that it was actually very beautiful. In the mid-1700s the friars had to move house, which meant also taking their cemetery with them. When all those wagon-fuls of bones arrived at the new friary, some unknown monk took it upon himself to arrange them in a pleasing manner. Intricate patterns, chandeliers, symbolic designs — he went all out in these handful of rooms. It was fascinating, both intellectually and aesthetically. Never before have I asked the question, “What is that star made out of — coccyx?”

We still have a few days to cram in some more history and art. And gelato, of course!