Rome - Day 1

All roads lead to Rome. 

It was our last city on our trip. We arrived on a Friday evening and had a nice quiet evening. We were staying in an apartment and there was a store across the street so we cooked our own dinner.

Saturday morning we were up early to go on a tour of the Vatican. We had arranged a tour guide partly knowing that we would gain the most out of our time and also we could "skip the line".

We began the tour at the Vatican Museum. This is where the collection of things that the Pope's have amassed over the last 2,000 years or so. First, a statue of Julius Caesar (another photo from the history timeline cards).

We also saw this statue which is a reproduction but made to show the colour as the original statue had colour. That reminded us of the terra cotta warriors in Xian as they too originally had colour.

We saw the basement where they had vehicles from carriages to automobiles from the various Popes.

As we walked around there were statues and artwork all over the place.

This is a famous Greek statue Laocoon. We are reading a book about Michelangelo and this statue was mentioned. I love when something we read about something and remember what we saw.

We wandered following the crowd and listening to our tour guide as we headed toward the Sistine Chapel. It was supposed to be quiet in there and every now and then you would hear a guard say, "shhh, quiet please". We sat and just looked at all the fresco of things we have seen in photos (another timeline photo).

We then walked towards St. Peter's. Our guide told us that this is the Holy Door which is bricked shut except during a Holy Year. Our guide told us that there were a number of holy doors throughout Rome and if you walked through them your sins would be forgiven. Jesus said, "I am the door". It is through Jesus that we are saved.

We saw Michelangelo's Pieta. Pause and think that this was just a large piece of marble and with a chisel he was able to create such beauty and emotion. This is the only sculpture that Michelangelo signed. He did that after hearing someone comment that it was the work of another artist and so Michelangelo added his name to the front so the world would know that it was his work.

We had time to just wander and look around.

J really like this window. It was difficult to photograph. I think he is including this in his fine arts project.

I love the way the light comes into this dome. Oh that the true light of Christ might shine forth here.

It was this building that indulges were being sold.

I think we were able to see a number of domes during our trip.

We went out to St. Peter's Square.

I love this photo of J. I love the smile. It was so fun to take the kids to such an historical place.

I am so glad that we paid the extra to have a tour guide. It helped in so many ways to be able to understand what we saw. An interesting thing to us was our tour guide was an English and Chinese tour guide.

We were hot and hungry so we found a place for lunch and then walked towards Hadrian's Mausoleum. This is the same Hadrian as Hadrian's wall. The Mausoleum is also known as Castel Sant' Angelo. It was used by the popes as a fortress and castle. We just walked around the outside and found our way to the bus stop.

That was our first day in Rome. I will say that it is hot in Rome in June. I will also add that the fruit there is delicious. We had some delicious cherries and tomatoes.

Beth