The Old Gray Mare She Ain't What She Used to Be...Day 3 in Rome...

Monday, February 26th was a very weird day for us. Claude awoke still not feeling well and his ankle was very swollen. He had to make the difficult decision to not be a tourist this day but to be a patient that needed healing. It was a tough one because this day we were to tour the Vatican. I would do this day of touring on my own. After 54 years of marriage, I would be a tourist with my sidekick. It was weird! I would take lots of pictures so Claude could see things. Alan was very good to be sure there were pictures taken of me at key places. Now, we were blessed with a physical therapist on this trip. He worked on Mindy after her fall. He came and worked on Claude's ankle this morning before I left. Grateful for Nathan.

Three pictures of the drive to Vatican City. The third one is a gas station. They are so nondescript; you pass by and don't even know there was a gas station there.

There is a wall around Vatican city. Well, except for the opening from St. Peter's Square into Rome. At the corners of the wall are large objects indicating that is the Vatican City Wall.

Alan, being Alan, had our men line up along the wall for a very unique picture. I often wonder what others think of these things that amuse Alan and entertain our groups. 

Our first thing to see in Vatican City was the Vatican Museums. Not all of them by a long shot. But some of them. This little map shows where they are located inside Vatican City.

I always love a good diorama to get my bearings. This was a great on of Vatican City. We were shown a map and of Vatican City. If you held it one way, it looked like a key. If you turned it the other way, it was a key hole. All made for symbolism. 

Our guide was fantastic this time. I was beginning to understand I could speak Italian if I only added an "ah" at the end of my words! Seriously, she was explaining something about Adam and Eve. Alan made his usual smart remark in favor of men. She quickly lit up and put him in his place about Eve and women. I don't think, in all these years, I have ever seen that happen with Alan. He laughed and enjoyed the hearty repartee. She would spend a good bit of time here setting the stage of Rome in history and the Vatican in that history. She would describe the Sistine Chapel and all its artwork. This was done with lots of pictures. You cannot speak or take pictures of video in the Sistine Chapel. We all had a place to sit here. So she took this opportunity to educate us in a comfortable spot. Once her explanation was complete with hand gestured she told us to now clear our heads for the tour. She was great.

These are the long-hallwayed buildings which house a lot of the Vatican Museums. 

Sandi with St. Peter's Basilica in the background.

Bronze Pine Cone from Constantinian Basilica.

Sphere in a Sphere is a modern piece of artwork. Our guide hopped the barrier and showed us that it rotates. 

This gallery our guide kept saying was their photograph gallery. They didn't have cameras. So, busts were made of a person to serve as their picture. 

Some had holes where glass eyes would have been placed.

Not many are busts of babies. This is a bit rare.

This is where we were reminded that it is 'Vatican Hill'. Lots of stairs going up.

Laocoon. In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear.

This is a sarcophagus made of a marble from Aswan in Egypt.

Mosaic flooring.

This gallery was full of animal sculptures. I chose to take a picture of these as my hubby grew on a cattle and wheat farm.

Belvederre Torso. The torso was highly admired in the Renaissance for its powerful modelling, becoming an object of artists' inspiration and veneration. It served as a model for many of Michelangelo's figures in the Sistine Chapel, including the Sibyls and Prophets bordering the ceiling and the risen Christ in the Last Judgment.

We learned that these old generals wanted their statues made with their heads but their bodies were those of younger military men. 

Sarcophagus of St Helen, Emporer Constantine's mother. Women were never given a sarcophagus this ornate. This is truly a display of her importance.

This is the tapestry gallery.

The Gallery of geographic maps, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII, was built between 1580 and 1585. The layout of the maps follows an ideal itinerary along the Apennines with the Tyrrhenian regions on the left walls and the Adriatic ones on the right walls. The peculiarity of some maps is that some appear to the visitor as upside down because in the sixteenth century it was not a convention to place the north in the upper part of the map.

The Calabria Region.

The Almalfi Coast

The Campania Region.

The Etruria Region.

The Liguria Region showing how cities were laid out.

The Apennine Range.

Vatican Radio Station.

We would now enter the Sistine Chapel. No pictures are allowed. Alan had laminated pictures of the paintings that were labeled. He was gracious enough to give them to me. I scanned them and here they are. We entered through doors in the bottom of the wall painted by Michaelangelo of the Last Judgement. There are two pictures of that. The first has the cardinals in conclave. The second is the Last Judgement wall with notes. The last two pictures should be viewed from the bottom of the second one up to the top of the first one to get the story from creation, to Adam and Eve, then Noah, etc. 

From the Sistine Chapel we went down stairs and out a hallway and there was St. Peter's Basilica. 

This is the little balcony in the center top from which the Pope could speak.

Sandi inside St. Peter's Basilica. This is the largest church in the world. 

On the floor as you enter, inlaid is a recording of the meters in length from the entry to the far end. 

As you walk down the center of the basilica, you will find other inlaid wording of other cathedrals around the world showing their length in meters so you can see where they would fit inside St. Peter's Basilica. This is the Washington DC Cathedral inlay.

This is looking up at the distance of the Washington Cathedral. The round metal grates seen along this walk are actually openings to crypts located below the basilica.

Michealanglo's Pieta. Done when he was 23 years old. Many people find this more beautiful than the David. 

Beneditus XIII, Angels by Botticelli. He was known for his ability to use three different types of marble and bronze in his artwork. Takes a special talent to do this.

St. Peter by Cambio.

The Chair of St Peter.

We ended our time in Vatican City with time on St. Peters Square.

Where the smoke pipe is added for Conclave in Sistine Chapel. 

Papal Apartment. The second window from the left above the white stone is where the Pope would speak from his apartment.

It was a bit rainy. This is the Swiss Guard station. Hard to see but there is a Swiss Guard in uniform but covered by a rain coat at the left of the arch and another standing in the archway. You are not encouraged to take their picture except at this point.

Alan photobombing my panorama pictures.

I went in search of the wind statue from Angels & Demons. It would be one of 16 plaques that mark the wind direction in the middle of St. Peter's Square. The PONENTE (meaning west wind in Italian) is the site of the second murder. The one used in the movie should be West Ponente. But it is the same picture on each one. Sud means south.

Sandi in St. Peter's Square.

As we left St. Peter's Square, we were told this white stone in the ground is the border between Vatican City and Rome. 

View of Rome from St. Peter's Square.

View of St. Peter's Basilica and St. Peter's Square from Rome.

Our coach would take us to a location near the Spanish Steps. We would walk to the top of the Spanish Steps. Some streets in Rome.

These are pictures of the Spanish Steps and Trinità dei Monti church behind them. They were taken as we walked down the steps. 

At the bottom is the Broken Boat Fountain. According to legend, as the River Tiber flooded in 1598, water carried a small boat into the Piazza di Spagna. When the water receded, a boat was deposited in the center of the square, and it was this event that inspired Bernini's creation.

Walk to the Trevi Fountain.

Trevi Fountain. I did not throw coins in this fountain. There was a wall of people around it. At least to rounds of cheers arose from the crowd as young men proposed to young women. 

I did finally have my first gelato of the trip. I wanted to do this with Claude. But, I succumbed to the desire to try Italian gelato at this little gelateria. My choise was pistachio. Yum.

Walk to the Pantheon. 

The Pantheon. The Pantheon is a former Roman temple and, since AD 609, a Catholic church in Rome, Italy. It was built on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus, then after that burnt down, the present building was ordered by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated c. AD 126. We did not have tickets to go inside. However, we all wanted to go inside. Tickets were purchased and we were able to enter before they closed it at 6pm for a mass.

Raphael's tomb.

On the roof of the home outside the Pantheon we saw little structures that looked like miniature houses. We were told their were shrines for the families living in the homes.

Our final hike was to Fiumi Fountain. It is often called Four Rivers Fountain. It is located in Piazza Navona. Again, another scene from the movie "Angels & Demons". Berini's Four River Fountains depicts the Nile, Ganges, Rio de la Plata, and Danube as deities, all overshadowed by a massive obelisk with Catholic symbols. The message is that the Church (and therefore the Pope's family) has supreme authority over all four corners of the world.

Palazzo Pamphili behind Fiumi Fountain.

Piazza Navona is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. For the ancient Romans it was a venue for athletic contests, accommodating 30,000 spectators, it later hosted gladiatorial battles and mock naval combats, earning its name Navona, or 'big ship'. You can see Fiumi Fountain at the opposite end.

I did manage to find a Christmas ornament for Rome. Yeah!!

Claude was feeling better when I returned. He had a great, long nap. That is always good for healing. His ankle was still very swollen. We decided to walk across the street in front of our hotel to a restaurant for dinner. Then back to the hotel for a good night's rest. We had to pack up because the next day would be a travel day.