And we walked...

Hello everyone!

Not much to tell you about from last night. We hit the hay right after we posted the blog; it had been a long and tiring day.

This morning we awoke with energy, found our way to breakfast and loaded up. We were preparing ourselves for the long tour through the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica and we knew we wouldn't be eating again for several hours. We made our way to the subway and traveled across town and then walked into another country. For those of you who don't know, Vatican City is in fact it's own country. We met our tour guide, Julia and made our way into St. Peter's Square.

It was a very special morning in St. Peter's Square. The Pope, Benedict XVI arrived at 10:30 and we got several great pictures of him as he motored around the square. As you can see in the picture on the right, he is clearly blessing Matty (click on the picture to get an enlarged view of the Pope). From there we walked around the exterior walls of Vatican City to the entrance of the Vatican Museum. Each member of our group received a headset and our tour guide had a microphone that she spoke into. It was very convenient to walk around and look at things and not have to 'huddle in' to hear her when she spoke.

We made our way from the entrance of the Vatican Museum to the Sistine Chapel. For those of you who have been here, you'll know what we mean when we say it was a hike. However, the signs throughout the museum had 'Capella Sistina' pointing so we knew that we would run into it eventually, we just didn't realize that eventually actually meant 4 hours. It was kind of like Disneyland. Each time we would turn a corner we thought, 'Yes! This is it! We're here!' But...not so much. However, our guide was fantastic and we got to learn a lot about what we were looking at so the time actually went by quite quickly. Our guide also mentioned a little fact about the size of the museum. She said that if you took 30 seconds to look at each piece of work in the museum, without eating, sleeping, or pausing, it would take you SEVEN YEARS to get through the museum. Crazy...and we don't have that much time on our hands so we took the quick tour.

Prior to arriving at the Sistine Chapel our guide went through the entire body of work on a display board. It was so interesting to see the progression of Michelangelo's work during the four years it took him to paint the ceiling. It was also interesting to see how many self-portraits (hidden within the painting, drawn as a regular person in the scene) were typically done by artists in that age. It was also interesting to learn that Michelangelo had to have his arm twisted to do the work in the Sistine Chapel, because he really didn't want to do the work. He was a sculptor, not a painter or fresco artist.

When we arrived at the Sistine Chapel the guards there made sure that the room was quite and that no one took photos or video. We tried to soak it all in, but there was so much there and so many details that we could have sat there for hours.

From there we made the short walk to St. Peter's Basilica and saw the sculpture that started Michelangelo's career, the Pietà (thanks to Matty's mom for the heads up). It was simply magnificent. This piece is also the only piece of art that he ever signed.

The sheer size of the Basilica is breathtaking. The sculptures and interior were created to give the effect of the building being smaller. Words and sculptures that were placed higher up were bigger, thus making the building appear smaller. Our tour ended here and we thanked Julia for her time and knowledge.

By this point we were ravenous so we found a quick bite to eat and then set out on our next adventure: the 'Angels and Demons' tour. We had decided to do a self-guided tour so we did the 5 stops a little out of order so that it fit our route back to the hotel a little better. As we were already in St. Peter's Square we found the 'Air' symbol, the West Potente. It was tough to see because the chairs and railing were still set up from the Pope's visit earlier today, but we took a picture of it from afar.

From there we walked to Castel Sant Angelo. For those of you who have read the book this building is very close to the Vatican and is connected to the Pope's private library by a passageway called il passetto. Unfortunately, that wasn't part of our self-guided tour, but we did climb to the top (yes...more friggin' stairs) and got a great view of the Eternal City (the Vatican is in the background of this picture). We were even able to see a little storm rolling in. Time and weather were not on our side so we headed toward the next stop.

It was a 'short jaunt' (which by the way is a Matty-ism, as short should not be put with the word jaunt. Perhaps it means something different to someone that is 6'5 and has a much longer stride than someone who is 5'5...but maybe that's just me) to Santa Maria del Popolo. We saw 'Earth' in this church in the Chigi Chapel (pronounced kee-gee). The church also had two paintings by Caravaggio which we were fortunate enough to see as well.

We got to our fourth stop by way of the subway (we're pros now) and then took a short jaunt up a large hill to the church. On the way we stopped for some gelato. The delicious snack was a great diversion to the hill. The church is Santa Maria della Vittoria and we saw 'Fire' there. The marker for this church was the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, a sculpture by Bellini. We have decided that Bellini may be one of our favorite sculptors (he was really brilliant).

We were met with a light sprinkling of rain as we made our way back to the hotel where we enjoyed a brief sieste before heading out for dinner and the final stop on the 'Angels and Demons' tour. For those of you keeping track this was the 'Water' clue. However, our final stop was under construction. I guess that with a city this old, it's likely that things are going to be under renovation from time to time. We were able to catch just a glimpse of Bernini's fountain of 'Four Rivers' statue through the scaffolding. With water, we're certain that it would have been beautiful. It's ironic that the 'water' portion of our self-guided tour was missing its most important element...the water. Oh well, maybe next time we visit Rome.

We had a wonderful evening and enjoyed dinner outside on the Piazza Navona, one of Rome's most popular squares. The afternoon brought some rain showers, but they were cleared up by dinner and the city felt clean and cool.

We have tried to get used to eating late (between 9 and 10 p.m.), but it certainly does make for some long days. The vino was great, as was the food. We merrily strolled around the piazza picking up a few mini-paintings and then stopped for a caffe latte and a sambuca. We also enjoyed the nightlife (and people-watching). We've come to love seeing the culture here whereby everyone hangs out in the square, kind of like their own mall or bar. Young and old come to enjoy the evenings, the food, the music, and the company. We wonder if we can create some of these squares in Phoenix!?

Good night for now.