July 7
Okie Dokie. Day 2 in Roma and it’s time to enter another country: Vatican City! We started in the wings of the Vatican museum which is almost too hard to describe. We wandered through room after room of sculpture, thousand year old tapestries, mosaics, painted ceilings, painted everything! Towards the end we stepped into the rooms of Raphael. ….. Next was the Sistine Chapel. Originally, Michelangelo was commissioned to create the tomb of a pope and then halfway through some of those works was abruptly fired. Bummer. But we all know about a tough economy… So Mike went off to Florence for a couple of years and was eventually called back to Rome on the suggestion of his arch-nemesis Raphael who was already workin up at the Vatican. So Ralph pretty much wanted Mike to fail and so he talked the Pope into hiring Mike to paint the chapel, aka the Sistine. Since Michelangelo had never painted a day in his life, Raphael was sure he wasn’t going to be able to pull off frescoes, which is basically painting with wet cement and never being able to fix a mistake. However, Michelangelo obviously put his game-face on and painted the heck out of that ceiling and 4 years later it was about halfway done. Looking so good, ole Raphael came back and told mike that he could take over the project from there. But luckily, Micheangelo held his ground and completed the chapel forever changing painting as we know it. Lauren and I have pretty much got a crush on Michelangelo now. This guy lived to be 90. Kinda unheard of back in the day and not only was a spectacular scuplturist, but fantastic painter too. He never saw himself as sculpting rock, but freeing the statue already inside.
Enough on Mike.
But seriously, the Sistine Chapel was thrilling. Apparently all of Rome and their grandmothers had come out to see it because it was very crowded, but that also provided a prime opportunity to snap some illegal shots of the ceiling. It had to be done quick so they aren't the greatest, but totally worth having.
Entering St. Peter’s Basilica was basically like entering the Santa’s North Pole... Something I’ve grown up always hearing about, seeing on TV, but never actually picturing in person. It’s hard to wrap your mind around the remains of the apostle Peter buried right where you're walking. We also went through the tombs of the Popes and saw where the late John Paul II was buried. People knelt and cried. It was overall an awesome experience. Highly recommending for both cathies and non-cathies to come to Rome to see.
Rome is so full of history, and art, and culture, and something to see on every corner. As they say in Rome: “a lifetime will never be long enough…”
We quite agree.
J&L
PS - After our amazing last day exploring Rome, our TG... Tyson invited all 38 of the group to go catch the Spain vs. Germany game with some of his local buds. You know, typical guys games night... Happens even for ex-patriots living in Rome. So Lauren and I, along with one of our "new", "older" friends in the group changed and came down to the hotel lobby to find we were the only 3 attending... We basically felt like the losers that our tour guide would probably joke to his buddies about: "sorry guys--couldn't lose these ones..." However, long night short, we had a BLAST. (And Lauren fell on the way to the irish pub--which really boosted our coolness trailing these guys into Rome...) We met up with several more TG's (yes I've already abreve'd them to TG's---they're like a dime a dozen around here). Lauren immediately started gettin her special smile on for a dark skinned ex-american TG. While in rome, we went to the Shamrock. Yep, that's irish. And then we went to Flannigans. Yep, that's irish. And then we ended up at a Roman wine bar. About time right?
Good times were had by all. And Lauren didn't skin her knees.
Goodnight Rome.
