Rome- March 11

We arrived in Rome in the evening to a rain and wind.  After dinner at the hotel it was nice to talk to our kids for a bit before we went to bed.

We started our day at the Vatican.  Did you know that the Vatican is it's one country.  Smallest in the world at 109 acres. 

We started our tour of the grounds where we saw some ancient Egypt "souvenirs".  This massive cone made out of copper is quiet remarkable because it has survived over the years considering  throughout history most copper artifacts of this size were melted down most likely for to make weapons

Mosaic tiles like these were used for advertising the particular items in the shop.

In the Vatican and start down this elaborate slanted hallway.  It was made slanted so that anyone visiting the Pope would have to climp upwards to meet him at the top.  

One of the hallways displayed tapestrys of stories from the Bible.  How horrid to paint the picture of Kind Herod killing the babies in Jerusalem.  But these Roman's like horrid things.

I like the hallway of all these painted maps of Italy on the wall.  Pope Gregory XIII really wanted to tour around his country but it was deemed too dangerous so they commissioned people to go and map out the country and come back and paint it.   The tour guide said it is extremely accurate except for Pompeii which wasn't unearthed until later. 

We then entered the Sistine Chapel.  Before we entered the Vatican our tour guide gave us a little history of the paintings.  Michelangelo balked, because he considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, and he was hard at work sculpting the king's tomb. But Pope Julius insisted, and Michelangelo began work on his famous frescoed ceiling in 1508. He worked for four years.   Some of the work is not original such as the fingers touching.  At some point the plaster came off the ceiling and had to be repainted.  

 You can also see in the upper corners where they left it dark after they cleaned it in the late 90's.  

Michelangelo originally painted the  Final Judgement with everyone naked.   Some prudish leaders of the church deemed it inappropriate so Michelangelo added clothing to Jesus and a couple other people including the gatekeeper to hell (lower mid right hand corner in the boat)  which he painted the face to be his most vocal  nudist criticizer.   

Later other painters added clothing to some other figures.  Some of the clothing has been removed some but if they tried to remove others it would most likely remove the plaster so they just leave it alone.   In the middle just right and below Jesus there is a man holding his skin. It's Saint Bartholomew who was an apostle that was skinned alive.  If you look closely Michelangelo painted his self portrait in the skin.  This was a common way of signing the picture back then.   

We then toured St. Peter's Basilica.   These beautiful golden doors are open only once every 25 years.  

It's customary when passing by this Shrine of a pope to touch his right foot for blessings.  

If you look close you'll see a skeleton holding a pitch fork.  The pope at the time wanted his tomb to remind everyone that we all live and die and to not get to conceited with power.  

Once outside we were just in time for the changing of the guards.  These guards are from the Swiss Government because at some point in time it was the Swiss military who saved the Pope from harm and since then it is considered a high honor to be chosen from the Swiss military to guard the Pope.

 We left the Vatican around lunch time where the bus drove us to another part of Rome.   We ate lunch in the center of John's favorite squares the Piazza Navona.  I ordered the Ravioli in cream sauce.  It was by far the best thing I had ever tasted.

We met up with a friend from John's mission Tina.  More about her later.  She graciously walked us around this part of Rome showing us the many monuments.  She spoke no English but I'm sure if she did she would have told us all sorts of interesting facts but instead this leg of the trip was the just look and marvel part.  

The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome and one of the most famous fountains in the world.   I'm not surprised it was packed and it wasn't even tourism season yet.  Pauline says John has a picture from his mission of him standing all by himself in front of this fountain.   Hard to image in this day and age.  

Tina told us if we throw some coins over our shoulder into the fountain it's not only good luck but it means we will return to Rome again.  

Our last stop with Tina was the Spanish Steps.  It was a great place to sit and take in the atmosphere of this area of Rome.  

 After saying our goodbyes to Tina it was a mad dash onto the Metro and bus up to the Rome Temple for John to meet up with old friends and then we taxied back to a favorite pizzeria of John's to meet up with the Tonons for dinner.   More about that later as well.