Good Tuesday Morning Rome. Here we await our tour of the Vatican. The oldsters among us decided on a guided tour, while the youngsters, mostly, stood in a long line for a self guided tour. Barb and Randy had done that the last time they were in Rome and opted for the tour, which we agreed to.
If all roads lead to Rome, then we must be at the end of our road. Here we are in the long, strung together galleries of the Vatican Museum ... we start with statuary.
This is a Porphyry marble bathtub that belong to Nero. It is the largest piece of Porphyry in the world. The purple marble was found in Egypt and was mined to extinction by the Romans who prized the purple color which was dedicated to the royals. Pophryry is ounce per ounce more valuable than gold. On reflection, though, I doubt the tub was even comfortable, so I can't even be jealous.
Frescoed domes loomed above us.
Another wonderful ceiling.
These are carvings on the sides of a Sarcophagus carved from the purple marble.
These are enormous wall rug hangings that took multiple artisans years to make, there where many of them hanging down both walls in another long adjoining gallery.
Then came the long hall of maps that were painted on the walls.
Of course the star of the show was the Sistine Chapel, which came at the end of the long, long gallery halls.
I somehow missed putting in a picture of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, but will add it here.
Then we came out into the main chapel of St. Peters, and the central piece, placed at the junction of the 'cross' design, seen in many cathedrals, is this canopy which is built over the place where St Peter is buried. Yes, the apostle of Christ who was martyred in Rome during the reign of Nero, the bathtub guy. The first St. Peters was built in 330 AD over his grave.
The current church was completed in 1626 There is some doubt as to whether or not Peter's remains were moved to another location. In the 1960's someone found some remains that had been taken from beneath the cathedral in the 1930s and stored/hidden elsewhere. (there were other human remains there, as well as farm animal remains) The removed remains came to light accidentally and were tested and found to belong to a man in his 60's or 70's, and the current Pope declared them to be Peter's remains and they were reinterred here.
So here we all are, outside of St Peters, before rejoining the rest of the group who 'self-toured' In trying to find a descriptor for this group, someone decided on 'mature adults', to which the next generation retorted, I guess that makes us the immature adults. Um, Yeah, That.
Then it was time to catch some food before heading to see the new Rome temple.
Here's the whole group of pilgrims.
The stained glass window above and this statuary is located in the visitor's center near the temple.
The original Christus was carved in Rome in 1838 by Bertel Thorvaldsen, a Danish artist and has been located in a Lutheran church in Copenhagen since then. He also carved the twelve apostles, which have been reproduced and are shown here. Note the key in Peter's hand.
After dinner we went out again to see the famous Trevi fountain.
We even tossed euro coins in and made wishes.
As always there was gelato to be found ... I ate an orange, which was in season and very yummy and very local.
We laughed at the tiny size of this car, which I love because it was red and white ...
But the next morning we topped that by finding a single seater car.
That morning we were off bright and early to see the Colosseum and miss the crowds.
We took a guided tour and then spent another hour wandering.
We ran into most of our younger members, not immature, sitting on two thousand year old steps inside.
By this point I was sitting every chance I got.
After the Colosseum we were transferred to another guide who took us to see the ruins of the forum.
Our hilarious Roman guide (born less than a mile from where he sits here) had an English mother, and speaks perfectly. The perfect guide. Here he sits next to the Seamons' oldest son, and tells us about the temple of the Vestal Virgins. They were young women from 16 to 36 who kept the flame in the temple alight. They were chosen at age 6 and trained for 10 years. He said they must have all been somewhat slow of mind, since it took them 10 years to learn to how to keep a flame going. Randy has his contact info if any of you go to Rome, he was the perfect guide.
This green door was orignally at street level, before the building beneath it, and the rest of the forum were excavated. The gully that is the forum, filled with silt after the Roman sewer beneath it got plugged up, this resulted in the preservation of much of the ruins as they would have appeared around the time of Christ.
In fact our guide was so good that most of the 25 of us signed on for another tour that night, of the Pantheon. It was completed in 125 A.D. and is the only complete Roman temple still in existence. I hope to replace this blurry photo.
It is a temple to all religions, and has paintings like this to honor each. The painter Raphael begged the emperor to be buried here.
The huge dome has a large round hole in the top, with a drain in the floor.
These are the original 20 ton doors that were originally gold plated. They still work on a complicated system I couldn't quite follow.
As a side note I thought you'd like to see this amazing building that is not the Pantheon. Dad, Tami and I had gone back to the flat for a nap, and then took the train, and then the bus to meet up. We were near this edifice and thought it was the Pantheon, none of us knew better. We had gotten off the bus at the Pantheon stop a half an hour before we were supposed to meet at the elusive elephant sculpture, and still managed to be there fifteen minutes after the tour started. And only after Randy said "If you don't find us at the left of the Pantheon, you are not at the Pantheon", Um Yeah.
The next morning we took a selfie at this church, on the way to the train station to head south. We had walked past it many times as it was close to our apartment, and Jeff and Robin are the only ones who took the time to see it. It is called the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Our Lady of Snows, and was built in the fourth century after Christ when a wealthy childless man prayed to Mary to know what he should do with his money. She told him to build a church dedicated to her in a certain place, and that it would snow, the snow would show him the foot print of the church. The thing is it was August, and when he went to talk to the Pope, the Pope said he'd seen the same vision. It snowed the next day in just that spot, and workman put stakes in at the edge of the snow area. Oh how I wished I'd gone to see inside.
Goodbye lovely, lovely Rome.
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