Day 16: The Sacred and the Profane

Friday was our big sightseeing day, staring with the mother of all Facebook check-ins, the Vatican.

We got up early, had breakfast (in which I thought I was terribly clever to throw a couple of bananas into my backpack), and headed for the Vatican. Rather than pay through the nose for a taxi, we decided to try and navigate the Metropolitan, Rome’s underground.

The nearest Metro station was a few blocks away, so we had some work to do right at the start. Mary Beth having a fractured foot and walking around in a surgical shoe makes walking any distance a challenge—and we had a lot of walking ahead of us. But we did find the station, navigate the automated ticket dispenser, and find the right line to take the Metro to the Vatican.

Once we arrived, we had a few more blocks to walk before we arrived at the Vatican. Our ticket was for 9:30 a.m., so we felt like we were in plenty of time. We walked towards the Vatican, next to the imposing walls (fifty-some feet of angled brick) and made our way to St. Peter’s Basilica. We went through security, and walked up the slope towards the Basilica.

Unfortunately, once we reached the top, we were informed that actually the tour starts at the Vatican Museum—which is back outside of the Basilica, around the walls, and on the next block over. This would set a bit of a tone for the day in terms of walking.

So we walked, out of the Basilica (and getting from basically the church proper to outside the grounds is a hike), outside of the walls, and around functionally a quarter of the wall before arriving at the Vatican Museum. Thankfully we had purchased tickets online, or I’m pretty sure we would still be waiting to get in.

But get in we did, and we made it into the Museum. Basically, the Vatican Museum has a whole bunch of other museums, and the Sistine Chapel. We looked at a few museum, including a pretty neat collection of Egyptian items, before deciding to get the wait over with and head right for the big show.

A couple of things about the Vatican. First, there are elements that remind me of the Louvre in Paris. The place seems like it is littered with amazing artworks. Statues, paintings, tapestries, and other mind-boggling artifacts are almost everywhere you turn. And the floors and the ceilings themselves are incredibly ornate in their design and decoration, making it difficult to focus on any one piece of art in comparison to the others. It’s very much a “forest and trees” situation.

The other thing is, they don’t really just hand you the Sistine Chapel. Once you decide to head there, you go through a rather torturous route through different rooms, each with its own amazing art to display. So even if you skip the “other” museums, you’re getting a really good look at the art collection the Vatican has accumulated over the last two thousand years.

But eventually, you do get to the Sistine Chapel, Michaelangelo’s masterpiece. Breathtaking doesn’t even begin to describe the sight. The chapel itself is 133 feet long and 46 feet wide, and has about a 20 foot ceiling. The walls and the ceiling of the entire chapel are painted with Michaelangelo’s work, and the beauty, detail, and depth of the painting is simply astounding. There are parts of the painting that you would swear were statues built into the walls, but simply reflect Michaelangelo’s mastery of technique. I stood near the middle of the chapel, looking up in awe, almost unable to focus on any one area of the painting given everything else around it. How could one man have done all of this, even if it took him ten years to do?

Inside the chapel, there are Vatican guards, sternly warning “no photos” to the assembled guests. But, of course, [THIS SECTION OF THE BLOG HAS BEEN REMOVED UNDER ADVICE OF COUNSEL].

Once we were done inside the chapel, we decided on the next challenge. We got in line to ascend to the Cupola, the very top of St. Peter’s Basilica, and take in the view of Rome from the top. You are offered two options. For five euros, you can take all 560 steps. For seven euros, you can take an elevator part-way and climb the remaining 311 steps.

We elected for the elevator. And those steps are no ordinary steps. Anyone suffering from claustrophobia would not do well in that staircase. There were points where I had to lean against the inside wall, which appeared to be arched away to follow the dome of the Basilica. And there were very tight spiral staircases, which had to go up at least four or five stories without stop.

It wasn’t one straight line of staircases, and there was a point in time where the stairs opened into a landing that ringed the top of the inside of St. Peter’s Basilica, what looked to be a hundred feet in the air. There was a metal grate that would prevent anyone from falling, but the sight of the Basilica below (far below) did little to settle my nerves.

We kept going up, through different sets of staircase, until we finally reached the top. I will say, though, that I kept count, and there seemed more than 311 stairs. I counted either 360 or eleventy thousand, I’m not sure which was the more accurate count.

But once we arrived at the top, the view to which we were treated was worth the climb. Being able to see the Eternal City from that height, reaching out to the horizon, was simply spectacular. You could walk all the way around the cupola, so we were able to see the grounds outside the Basilica from the top, putting it into perspective with regards to the rest of Rome—as well as putting into perspective just how freaking high off the ground we were.

After taking in the sights, we headed back down, which was a times a little more terrifying to navigate the tight spiral staircases. We got back to terra firma, and went to explore the Basilica itself.

The word “awesome” is overused. The sight of St. Peter’s Basilica was awesome, as in awe-inspiring. As in, something this big and this ornate and this beautiful cannot possibly be real. We walked around the Basilica, looking at the statues, the columns, the artwork, the marble floors, the impossibly beautiful ceilings, trying to take it all in. As we did, we noticed that a mass was being said in the main part of the Basilica. We went in and sat down, trying to quiet our minds and realizing that we were in fact attending a mass at St. Peter’s in Rome.

Other than the mass, the one thing that stood out was St. Peter’s tomb, a massive altar sitting on top of four gigantic pillars of what appear to be twisted columns, all in a dark stone. The tomb itself went up fifty feet in the air, and each of the pillars was big enough where two people wrapping their arms around them might be able to touch hands.

Once we were done with mass, we went down to the catacombs under the Basilica where the popes and other luminaries are buried. We saw the tomb of Pope Innocent and other popes dating back to the eleventh century. We also saw the sepulcher of St. Peter, where the first pope’s remains are interred, ornately decorated and well guarded.

 After we got done with the catacombs, we left the Basilica and toured the outside grounds, taking in all of the white marble statues of the saints looking down from on high. Once we were done, we headed to the bus to sit and rest while we headed to the second part of our sightseeing plans for the day.

Our other major sightseeing destination was the Piazza Venezia. Once a HISTORY, the Piazza now stands out in the middle of two major streets in Rome, with gigantic Italian flags flying in front of a huge white marble palace fronted with classical columns set behind the massive statue of Vittorio Emmanuel II, the first king of Italy. It was built in 1455 at the direction of Cardinal Venezia, which meant being a cardinal in 1455 was a pretty sweet gig to have. It also meant a lot more stairs to add to the collection for the day.

As we were leaving, we saw a whole bunch of people walking towards the Piazza Venezia in the azzuri shirts of the Italian national soccer team, wearing flags as capes and looking like they were ready for a good time. We noticed on our walk back to the Metro station that a large TV had been set up, and clearly the Piazza Venezia was the site of an outdoor watch party for this evenings group stage World Cup game between Italy and Costa Rica. While I was sorely tempted to stay, Mary Beth was wiped out, so we walked (and walked, and walked, and walked) to the Colosseum, which was the nearest station, to head back to the hotel.

At this point, we realized some poor planning on our part. We were trying to get on a train headed to the main terminal. At about 5:30 in the afternoon. On a Friday night. When the first train arrived and there was no room to fit one more person, let alone two, we realized we might have an issue. We waited for the next train. As we did, realizing how tight it was going to be, my pride finally failed me and I turned my backpack into a frontpack. I saw people doing this all the time in Rome, wearing their backpacks in front of them. If a fanny-pack is ridiculous, then the frontpack is ridiculous time about twenty. But knowing how jammed in we were likely to be, I didn’t have a lot of options.

About ten minutes later, the train arrived, and it was as packed as we thought it would be. Mary Beth basically got a running start and wedged a space in, which I followed up and filled as quickly as possible. Thankfully, we only had to wait two stops before we got to the main terminal and switch lines, and the train on the line back to the hotel was much less crowded.

On the walk back to the hotel, we decided (well, I decided and Mary Beth relented) to stop at a bar to watch some of the Italy-Costa Rica game. We found a bar where a number of well-dressed Italian men and women were sitting at an outside café, sipping on wine and beer, munching on small squares of cheese-covered bread, and watching the game on a large-screen TV.

Or, as I like to think of it now, Italian tailgating.

We left at halftime, which might have been for the best given that Italy was down 1-0, and returned to the room. We rested a little and I watched the end of the game, which saw Costa Rica hold on and pull of the upset of Italy. (Viva CONCACAF!) We both decided it was probably for the best not to be amongst the face-painted ultras at the Piazza Venezia after the outcome of the game.

We instead went to our new favorite restaurant, just next door to our hotel. The proprietor doesn’t really speak English, but recognized us as we came for our third meal. He was clearly bummed about the game, having the post-game dissection on the television. We ate outside, and headed back to the hotel room. It became clear how much walking we did when Mary Beth realized she had burned the battery out of her FitBit, having taken 15,000 steps when the device gave up the ghost. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before she was out in preparation for our final day in Rome.

BONUS: Never let it be said that we don’t take requests. Just for you, Joe, here’s the photo of me with the centurion. You may commence your mocking in three, two, one …