Roma and Vatican City! A brief trip through millennia of history!

This post has taken us more than 3 weeks to get published.  Apparently 3 days between trips is not enough to come home, do laundry, write the blog posts, and pack for the next adventure.  We're now back home from Dublin, after going to Stonehenge the previous week.  At least we're only two trips behind on posting now.  We'll work to get caught up in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for more regular posts.

***

Whew!  That was an awfully busy series of weekends and trips.  We're kinda glad that we have this weekend without travel plans that we can get caught up on laundry, blog posts, and sleep. 

We've really enjoyed the chance to fly out of our favourite nearby airport, East Midlands.  We are able to leave home just 2 hrs before our flight, and still be sitting at the gate more than an hour before the flight leaves.
In our ongoing good luck avoiding French labour disputes, the French Air Traffic Controllers decided to strike on Thursday.  We were wondering why the departure lounge was so busy.  It turns out that 10 flights from EMA were cancelled or delayed, and more than a hundred across the UK.  Ours somehow was completely unaffected, we actually pulled away from the gate about 10 minutes early.

We made our way easily to our AirBNB and after an authentic pizza dinner in a neighbourhood restaurant, tucked in because we had an early start the next day.

Our AirBNB was being run as a business.  Each of the rooms were themed to a different Italian movie.  Ours was La Dolce Vida.  The other two were The Gladiator, and The Godfather.

We had to make our way to The Vatican for 8:30 to start our tour of the Vatican Museum.  It is remarkable how many people they manage to accommodate through the museum and St. Peters Basilica in a day (50 000 / day average).

The outer wall of Vatican City

The generic Coat of Arms of the Pope; each pope will also have their own personal signet

Entrance to the Vatican Museums

Given the sheer number of priceless works of art, the next section is going to be a fair number of photos, mainly with brief descriptions.

This is a view from inside the Vatican museum of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica

This is one of the courtyards around the museums.  Many sculptures are inserted into the alcoves all around the square.

Inside the fresco and tapestry galleries

We found it hard to imagine such a large series of buildings (and we only saw the public areas) so completely covered in fine art.

The Vatican has in it's collection one of the largest art and sculpture collections in the world.  Because the museums are so vast, and, to be honest, not too well marked by interpretive panels, you should get a tour guide to show you the best of the collection and guide you through the museum.  Our guide was a cute Japanese woman who kept referring to us as 'her dears'.
It was really good to have her guide us through all the various rooms.  I will admit, we don't have enough of a history in fine art to really grasp the full importance or enormity of what we were seeing, but we did admire the beauty of each of the sculptures and, perhaps more importantly all the frescos throughout.

Yes, the museums even have their own Oculus.  

This is early in the day.  The crowds get worse later in the day.  Three long rooms in a row filled with tapestries, frescoes, paintings and sculptures.  

The stones in this tile (on the floor) is made of lapis lazuli.

Inside the tapestry gallery

I like this picture for two reasons: First, this whole gallery is entirely fresco, though painted to appear to be framed, the plaster is tinted to give the appearance of depth to the frame.  The second reason is because of the dark black mark through the centre.  This is the condition of the fresco before restoration.  In many restorations, small patches like this will be left un-restored to show the level of effort required.

The same with this fresco, all the depth is created by the colours of the painting

This entire gallery was one of the first complete cartographic surveys of Italy on all of the walls, and individual frescoes on the ceiling related to each of the regions of the country.

Anyone recognize this location?

These are some of the maps of parts of Italy

We did get quite a good history of the rivalry between Raphael and Michelangelo (sorry no Leonardo or Donatello here).  Michelangelo, who was a relative new-comer and not accustomed to painting frescoes (painting the design while the plaster is still wet; fresh) was commissioned to (famously) paint the sistine chapel, while Raphael, a rather more well known painter, especially of frescoes was commissioned to complete many of the paintings in the adjacent papal apartments.   It is said this started quite a feud, and one in which Raphael tried several times to have Michelangelo fired from his commission, so Raphael could complete the work himself.  It is believed that Raphael captured some of his disdain for Michelangelo by depicting him unsavourily in his most famous fresco in the papal apartments.

These next set of photos are from inside the 'papal apartments' which Raphael was commissioned to paint

The next stop on our tour was to actually see the Sistine Chapel.  There are no photos, no videos, and in theory no talking within the chapel.  Many people followed the first two requests, hardly anyone did the last.  It's unfortunate, because the room is spectacular, and truly something to behold.  Each of the individual frescoes could easily hold you captivated for 10 or 15 minutes; so to have only 20 in total in the room with our group seems not entirely fair.  Unfortunately, that's the way they get millions of visitors through each year.
If you want a detailed description by much smarter people than me, I'd recommend Link 1, or Link 2.  Honestly, there is so much symbolism (basically the entire creation story), and history depicted in a relatively small space, it's hard to capture.  With so little time to take it all in, I honestly felt overwhelmed, and like I was just trying to take it all in.  It was both breathtaking and humbling.

They have just recently finished a restoration of the frescoes in the basilica.  This took nearly 10 years to complete.  Prior to the restoration, the 500 years of visitors, pollution of Italy and Vatican, thousands of candles, soot, carbon dioxide from breathing visitors, and attempts at 'restoration' and 'touching up' had left the ceiling so covered, and darkened, the frescoes were nearly invisible.  Following the restoration, the vibrancy of the original frescoes was once again able to be appreciated.  This is a before and after from Wikipedia of one section.

Source: Webgallery of art, Bartz and Konig, "Michelangelo"

The next, and final stop on our tour was to St. Peter's Basilica.  This is the largest basilica in the world.  The second largest being Kings College Basilica in Cambridge UK.  The scale of this church is just difficult to fathom.  Kris pointed out to me as we were leaving that the Statue of Liberty could be placed standing inside the dome.  Wanting to check her sources, I did a little googling and found a number of other big things that can fit inside St. Peter's; It's not just the Statue of Liberty, but also the pedestal she stands on,  the space shuttle with all the boosters, Air Force One, The Great Sphinx of Giza, and Cinderella's Castle from Disney World (maybe not all at once).  Kristin's favourite from this list was the AT-AT Walker from Star Wars.

The entrance to St. Peter's, as well as the Papal Balcony

This structure marks the site of St. Peter's grave and the entrance to the crypt.

In the photo above, the letters around the top of the basilica are approximately 5 feet tall!

Our tour ended here, so we wandered around inside for a little longer once the guide left us for a few more photos and some more time for admiring the Pietà (lots more detail about it from a podcast here).  It is widely considered to be one of the finest sculptures in the world, carved by Michelangelo, using a single piece of marble.  Similar to the carvings we saw of the lion in Lucerne, it's unbelievable how the sculptors are able to make clothing seem to flow, and curves of an arm or face not only flawless, but also natural.  It is also one of the only sculptures that Michelangelo included his name on, supposedly when nearing completion, he heard it being attributed to another sculptor of the day, and his vanity got the best of him.

The Pietà

And out we were to the main square in Vatican City

The Swiss Guard; the standing army of The Vatican.

Vatican version of a water fountain (more on this later)

Our last stop in The Vatican was at the post office. Yes, The Vatican has it's own post office, and it's actually rather more efficient than the Italian Post, so many Romans will take their mail to the Vatican and post it there.

Kristin has been getting a stamp from each place we go, and was able to have one here as well.  I was sad because, although an independent country, Vatican has no passport stamp, none.  Even if you bring your passport, there is no stamp to give you.  They have abdicated their entire border control to Italy, so it's now possible to basically dance across the border of a sovereign land.

I guess now is a good time to start talking about the weather and the water.  So anyone who suggests you see Paris in the spring, would be insane to then recommend Rome in the summer.  We're barely 4 days into the summer, and the temperatures here are 36° C without the humidex.  As they call it here in the UK, the realfeel temperature was closer to 44°C.

So you'd think, no big deal, just go for some short shorts, a tank top for the ladies and you're set; but every church in Rome requires that you dress appropriately, which means no knees or shoulders showing.  Bring On The Sweat!

There are, however, two great coping mechanisms that the Roma have.  The first is gelato.  So much gelato, and such good flavours!  It's fresh, it's sweet, it's light, it's refreshing, and the flavours are nothing like what we have at home (blood orange, basil, pineapple, and cherry were all variations we saw).  We had our first of this Italian trip as we walked back to the metro.

Delicious gelato at this place - barely any sign outside but the locals had packed it full and you had to take a number to be served. Totally worth the wait!

 The second is the public water fountains.  When I say fountains, you probably have in your mind, ornate marble sculptures with water running through them, such as the Trevi fountain.

While you're right, I also mean these everyday fountains.

Even the birds enjoy the free washing service

Called nasoni (big nose), there are more than 2500 of them scattered across Rome (and The Vatican).  They are public, free, potable, always running, cold water fountains.  Some of them are humble, and really make you wonder if this is even a fountain, and the water even potable;

And others are actual sculptures, which you can fill your water bottle from the decorative spout.

Seriously, this is a potable water fountain.  Collect as much of the lion spit as you desire.

Perhaps our favourite part is the 'Roma Trick' to using the fountains.  If you don't have a bottle, you can cover the spout, and an upward stream appears from a hole on top of the pipe to let you drink from.

The spout of water is probably a bit too strong in this example.

Mastered!

The idea of these fountains dates back to the Roman era of 100 AD, when the nine aqueducts provided water to the residents of Rome.  At that time, the aqueducts provided each citizen of Rome with 1000 litres of water per day.  Today, modern usage, even with our daily showers, washing machines and dishwashers is usually 200-400 L/person / day.

The modern incantation of the Nasoni is much more recent, only about 140 years old, when the present cast iron fountains began to be installed, and are still in use today.
Today, they are used by Roma and tourists alike to stay hydrated, and find some reprieve from the Mediterranean Summer.

We would typically approach the fountain (even if we just stopped at one 10 minutes ago), pour out our 'old water', fill the bottle, chug it down, fill it again, chug that, fill it once more, and take that with us to tide us over till the next stop.  Even with this much water being drank, we went for more than 7 hrs without needing to use a bathroom!  Yay for dehydration.

Ok, back to our plans.
So we've left the Vatican, our second shortest stay in a sovereign nation since leaving Canada (France on our way to Belgium is the current reining champ at 30 mins), and headed off to see much more old stuff.
We decided to use the subway to get towards the central part of Rome.  We were first looking to tour another ossuary at the Convento dei Cappuccini.
This ossuary lies below Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins church.  The church was constructed in the 1630's and almost as soon as it was completed, the remains of thousands of Capuchin friars were exhumed and transferred to the crypt.  It is there that the remains were arranged into, well what I can only describe as remarkably macabre artistic scenes.  There are 5 altars, or alcoves which combined are thought to contain the remains of more than 4000 friars.  Different altars have been designed to different moments and themes.  Only a few of the skeletons are intact, most of those draped in franscician robes, while other bones are used to form designs and patterns.
Unlike in the Paris catacombes, where we were mostly only able to identify skulls, and large bones of the leg, collections of all sorts of bones will be used to make chandeliers, winged creatures, and fleurs de lis.  Once again, no pictures are permitted out of respect, so we didn't take any... though that doesn't mean others have also followed the instructions.

This was my favorite, but also very creepy;

Credit: https://joannapary.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/dscn0941.jpg

Credit: http://www.theculturemap.com/bone-cemetery-visit-capuchin-crypt-rome/

Credit: http://www.theculturemap.com/bone-cemetery-visit-capuchin-crypt-rome/

Source: Chris Holt: http://lifeasahuman.com/2010/travel-adventure/adventure/close-to-the-bone-in-a-roman-capuchin-crypt/

Following this, we found ourselves in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of Rome, so we chose to walk around to a number of the tourist locations, including the Spanish Steps (unfortunately under construction / restoration), the Trevi Fountain, and through the various squares and piazzas of Rome that we stumbled on in search of more gelato.  This is where Kris will pick up with the next post.