Tues. 09-18-07 -- Rome, Italy and Vatican City
This morning we got up around 8:30 am and headed out to Vatican City. As we got on the bus, it started raining a little which didn't worry us much since we'd be inside for most of the day.
When we got to St. Peter's Basilica, there was a HUGE line to get in! We got in the giant line and started waiting, but then it started raining hard! It hadn't rained much since we've been in Europe, so we stopped bringing our jackets in our day pack, which means we had no way to stay dry! I left Kara in line and ran to the street to find an umbrella seller where I bought one for 5 Euros. I hurried back to Kara then we huddled under the umbrella.
The line moved an OK speed, and after a while we made it into the church. The church was absolutely gigantic and extravagant. Our tour book told us the size of things, but it didn't actually look as large as it said. An optical illusion or something (or no scale perspective because everything was so huge). We walked around inside, then we went below the church to the crypt/tombs of the popes. It was a bunch of dead old guys to me, but some people were really into it. When we passed Pope John Paul II's tomb, I saw people crossing themselves, a woman knelt, and one guy even rubbed a cloth on the ground near the tomb. I guess he was running low on magical pope dust...
We left St. Peter's and walked over (in the rain) to the Vatican Museum. We mostly wanted to see the Sistine Chapel but we figured the museum would be a good place to spend some time out of the rain. Apparently everyone else thought that too, because the line was freakishly long! We waited for a long time, then we finally got into the hot, crowded museum!
We walked around the museum, saw lots of statues, an unwrapped mummy, and a bunch of tapestries. We were plenty bored of the art by the time we finally made it to the chapel (they run you through a one-way gauntlet of art before they'll let you in). The Sistine Chapel was different than I expected. The ceiling was lower than I thought it would be, and the walls were all painted which I didn't expect. It was pretty cool to see Michelangelo's painted ceiling, though it was a literal pain in the neck!
After gazing at the ceiling for some time, we left the chapel and had to walk through countless rooms of more art before we were allowed to leave. Once we escaped Vatican City, we were pretty hungry so we walked to a Rick Steves' recommended restaurant. We both got pizza (Kara = 4 cheese, me = sausage & mushrooms) and it was SO GOOD!!! My pizza was on thin crust, with no tomato sauce, just cheese, lightly cooked mushrooms, and bits of very tasty sausage. YUM! But the place charged us 2 euro for tap water, and two euro each for a cover charge! We felt a little ripped off when the bill came to 30.50 euro for lunch, but then the food was so good that maybe it was worth it!
After lunch we hopped the metro and transferred to a bus to get to the Christian catacombs on Appian Way. We bought tickets for a tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto, but we just missed the beginning of the English tour, so we had to wait around for a half hour (it was nice to relax, the surrounding area was very peaceful). Our guide was an Indian priest that was very friendly and informative as he walked us through the catacombs.
These tunnels were built during the Christian persecution in Rome as a secret place to bury the dead. The catacombs are very big, four floors over 33 acres! We only saw a small part, mostly just tunnels and body sized holes in the wall. There were no bones there because the Christians eventually moved the bones to church grounds because tomb robbers had smashed up the tomb slabs in search of valuables. It was very interesting to hear the priest speak of "the time of persecution" and "the freedom" when talking of Christian history. I knew that Christians were persecuted and killed by the Romans at the dawn of the church, but actually being here while being told again made it seem more real.
When our tour ended, we emerged into daylight, and Kara & I walked down to the gate where we entered from the road. But when we got there, the gate was locked shut! We walked back to the ticket office and found our guide and asked him how to get out. He told us that we had to exit a different way and take a different bus. He walked us to this other exit, and we talked more about the catacombs on the way. He told us how the catacombs were rediscovered in the 1800's by sheer luck and he pointed out old air shafts and staircases that were built by the early Christians. It was a pretty cool little private tour we got, so I'm glad that gate was locked!
This bus ride was longer than the ride out, but we got to see the giant church of Saint Giovanni which was the Vatican before the Vatican existed. Then we rode the metro back to the train station and walked around until we found an internet café. We booked a room at a hotel in Sorrento and I sent a bunch of emails to hotels in Venice to see if I could find an available room. Then we walked back to our room, did some laundry, and relaxed our tired feet!
