Rome Day Two

The next morning, we went to Vatican City!

St Peter's Basilica. This church was built on the memory, as well as the grave of St. Peter. A statue of Christ as well as His 12 apostles lines the top of the church.

St. Peter's Square. Memories of Angels and Demons came flooding back!

The church (St. Pete's Conner and Eddie liked to call it) is HUGE! It covers 6 acres and can hold 60,000 people. Just inside the entrance there is a large, round, purple slab of stone on the floor. This marks the site where on Christmas night 800 AD, the Pope crowned the French King Charlamagne, Holy Emperor. I'm not really sure what significance that has, but Conner and Eddie thought it was cool enough to take a picture while standing on it.

A view of the Statue of Christ from inside St. Peter's.

The entire church was financed with the money priests received from selling indulgences. People could PAY for their forgiveness...there must have been a lot of sinners in Rome at that time! This dome rises 430 feet above ground level.

This bronze awning, covering the supposed burial site of Peter, is seven stories tall. Apparently, more than 20 feet below this alter, is the tomb of St. Peter.

For centuries, as an act of reverence, people have kissed Peter's feet. Or, they may kiss their hand and then rub his feet.

His toes have been rubbed smooth.

Michelangelo's pieta. Pieta means "pity". In art, a pieta is always Mary holding the dead body of her crucified son, Jesus. This was one of my favorite sculptures of the entire trip. This was Michelangelo's first major project; he was only 24 years old when he completed it. It was beautiful.

The Holy Door. This door is only opened during Holy years. Every 25 years on Christmas Eve, the Pope knocks 3 times with a silver hammer and the door opens, welcoming pilgrims to pass through. The door was last opened in 2000. It stays open for the entire year and is closed again for the next 24 years.

Before we left St. Pete's we were able to go down to the basement (the crypt). We walked through the halls of the crypt and saw all of the previous Popes' tombs...It was a pretty cool experience.

The Pope lives in this building. His bedroom is the last window on the right. The window just to the left of that is his study...he will occassionally greet the public from this window.

The building in the middle of the picture (with the triangular rooftop and antennae) is the Sistine Chapel. The famous smoke signals released from this building announce the election of each new pope.

The best, not to mention cheapest, gelatto we had the entire trip. This was right across the street from the wall of Vatican City.

The Vatican Museum. We didn't have an audio tour for the museum, but it was still pretty incredible.

A REAL mummy.

A bronze statue of Hercules.

The hall of maps.

This oil lamp reminded me of the parable of the ten virgins.

The last stop in the Vatican Museum was the Sistine Chapel. Talk about a grand finale! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures (so I stole some lousy ones from Google). The Sistine Chapel is the personal chapel of the Pope, but it is most famous for Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling. When Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to paint the room, he originally said, "no." He was a sculptor, not a painter. But after the Pope begged and begged, Michelangelo gave in....but only if he could paint what he wanted to. He decided to paint the history of the world from Adam to Christ. He painted from 1508-1512. He did NOT paint lying down, contrary to popular belief; he stood and craned his neck backward for hours at a time.

I used to dislike this painting.  I learned that this painting represents God breathing life into Adam. No wonder he seemed so lethargic! This is now one of my FAVORITE paintings!

The Last Judgement. Years after Michelangelo painted the ceiling, the Pope asked him to come back and finish the job by painting the last judgement on the only wall that wasn't already covered in paint. It was interesting to see the difference in Michelangelo's attitude in relation to Christianity in a few short years. He was a devout Christian when he painted the ceiling, but just a few years later, he seemed to doubt the things he once believed.

He painted himself in the picture as a bag of bones...

It was a great day in Vatican City. Our feet ached after another day of endless walking, but it was all worth it. On our way to dinner we stopped at a flea market just outside the city. We didn't last long and didn't buy anything...we must have been too hungry. We started our search for the perfect place to eat.

We ate at an INCREDIBLE restaurant that night in the "restaurant district." We kept calling it the restaurant district just because someone wrote on our map that there were some great restaurants in that part of town. Turns out, when we asked how to get to the restaurant district, no one knew what we were talking about. We did finally find the area that was circled on the map and it seemed to be where the "locals" lived. It was fun to see everyone out and about without thousands of tourists crowding the streets. And even though the restaurant district didn't really exist, the food was definitely worth the bus ride to that part of town.

We had no problem cleaning our plates.

Rome by night. Breathtaking.