We did a very bad thing guys. Very bad. When we entered St. Peter's Square we saw the line snaking all the way to the back of the square but we both pretended like we didn't realize we were supposed to be in that back part of the line. Instead, we just stepped into the line mid way. In short (too late) we cut hundreds of people in order to meet Fr. Augustine (whom we had never met) on time. Which was never going to happen anyway. There were just so many people! Apparently the Vatican is closed tomorrow and closed today around 3:00 because of some Papal events. Good thing we saw it yesterday in all its glory because today it was full FULL of people.
About 20 minutes later than we were anticipating, mom met Fr. Augustine and Fr. Martin (whom we were not expecting to see this morning) in the meeting place. I had ran ahead to see if I could weave my way through the hoard quicker. I did, but then I was not successful in finding the good Fathers. A few short moments later we were all together (hand shakes all around) and Fr. Martin explained that we'd have to hurry...there was a mass happening in the Scavi around 11:00 and we needed to be out of there before then. We apologized profusely for being late. They were both kind about it. Fr. Martin said it was fun to wait because so many people asked them questions including one person who came up to him to complain about people cutting in line. Mom and I were like...yup. That was us.
We were going to have to go out of the whole place and come back in another door, but Fr. Augustine had the brilliant idea of asking the Swiss Guards if we could get by them. And they said yes. So we were escorted through those doors into the circus where thousands of years ago they think Nero martyred Christians. The Obelisk from St. Peter's Square was there originally before it was moved to the center of St. Peter's Square. You may be asking yourself if you read that right. YES. We got to go through the Swiss guards. Cause we are cool like that.
Once inside, we had to get permission from the main Scavi office to go in. Fr. Augustine secured this and we were off for a whirlwind quick tour of the Necropolis under the Vatican and for a stop at St. Peter's Tomb. Scavi means "excavations" I think and this part of the Vatican is only shown to about 200-250 people a day. That is nothing compared to the number of people who visit the Vatican daily. We got to see many of the tombs of the pope's and, of course, the bones of St. Peter. I mean, we actually got to stand about 3 feet from the bones. (His skeleton minus his feed and his head are here). This was pretty cool. We are forever indebted to Fr. Martin and Fr. Augustine for arranging this for us. It was pretty cool. We will see them again tomorrow since it is Sunday and since I'm traveling with my mother, you know what that means. Mass and brunch afterwards with the good Fathers which I'm looking foward too.
After the amazingness of that moment wore off, we were finally able to function again and off we went to our first stop of the day, St. Peter in Chains. St. Peter is actually not there, but his chains are there, but more exciting to me (the heathen that I am) was the Michaelangelo sculpture of Moses. This Moses is depicted with horns and you can look up why it's cool (aside from being a Michaelangelo), but it's cool and we got to see it. I even got to pay 1 euro to a machine to turn the lights on him. (We walked 21,668 steps today...mom just told me.)
From there guys, we went to the Colosseum and Ancient Rome. Of course, the Colosseum is amazing. We decided to hop on an English speaking tour since we'd not really done any official tours in our whole trip, save the Scavi, so we paid our dues and got two wonderful guides who first told us about the gladiators and the history of the Colosseum (Max) and then the Pataline Hill tour given to us by Alex. This is sort of like seeing downtown Ancient Rome. There is only 30% of the Colosseum left to be seen and only 6% of downtow old Rome, but both sites are truly amazing. We learned about the phrase "the short end of the stick" and "taking your hand in marriage" and about the gadgets that Romans used including wax tables and styluses (styli?) and the first disposable razors and also about how they used sand to scour themselves clean. Alex was full of good stories and I could have listened to Max's thick accent rolling those Rs all day. Took tons of pictures here.
By the time all that was over we were ready to perish, so we headed up the Capitalini Museum which overlooks Ancient Rome and had a nice little meal in their Cafeteria/Restaurant. We then accessed the museum (which is confusing and hard to nagivate having three floors in two buildings and a large patio thingy in the middle that means that sometimes you have to go down to go up) and saw lots more wonderful art including:
Scarabs (for Doug)
Bernini's Medusa Head
The Capataline Wolf with Romulus and Remus
A fresco that might be depicting Judith...you guys can let me know if you think it is...my cursory research did not pull up anything)
Boy pulling out a thorn (maybe this was the original? Have to check...)
Frescoes of the Raping of the Sabine Women
The Giant Marcus Aurelius bronze statue
Giant Ancient Head, Foot, and Hand
Big old Bronze statue of a guy with a club who could beat up anyone and has an amazing butt
More Caravaggios (hoping to see a lot more of his work tomorrow)
And we ended that museum with the huge Marfario statue reclining near a fountain...this is a "talking statue." Look that up to find a way that the commoners aired their grieviances to the Emperors.
Having finished the museum (and ready to find our beds) we headed down the big Capitaline Ramp and had a great view of the Vittorio Emanual monument...relatively new at less than a hundred years old and build to celebrate Italy's first king. Did you all know that Italy has only been a country since the early 1900's? Crazy, I know.
After a few night pics of the Colosseum, we hopped back on the metro and to our hotel. We asked the concierge for the closest gelato stop and found our neighborhood Gelateria for LOVELY and very good gelato.
Now we are back at the hotel and planning out our last few days here. Some highlights you will be able to look forward to:
Mass and brunch with Fr. Martin
Lots of Churches and Art Work
Hopefully the Catacombs
Pantheon
Thanks to everyone who chimed in about the Catacombs. We will see how that goes.
Bone note!
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