(Remember to click on the pictures to see them full-sized.)
A rainy day; we got up late-ish, and after breakfast, blogged in our room and saved photos from the camera. It was almost 13:00 by the time we left the hotel, went down to the tram stop, and got on the #8.
We got off at Isola Tiberina (where we got on last night) and took
a second stroll through the Ghetto, this time taking a few photos. One thing that struck us was how here (as everywhere in Rome) ancient ruins sit cheek-by-jowl with “modern” buildings, though of course it’s often difficult to tell their real ages.
Going back to the riverside, we waited to rejoin our open-top bus tour. It was late; as we found out, there was heavy traffic congestion. Our destination for the day was the Vatican, where we decided we’d do the Sistine Chapel first (since it closed early, according to the guide books), then St Peter’s, and then complete the bus tour.
Crossing the river, the bus took us again along the via della Conciliazione, which leads like an arrow into the Vatican. We stopped for lunch (beef/cheese sandwiches and "due Coca Light, per favore") before passing through the piazza Pio XII and between the ends of the twin curved colonnades which marked the entry into our eighth country since we left England; the smallest nation state in the world: the Vatican City State.
The colonnades are near-circular, and embrace the piazza San Piedro, with the façade of St Peter’s at its end. Without special equipment (i.e., with our little 5 MP digital camera), it’s impossible to get an adequate photo of the piazza; but this gives some impression of the beautiful colonnaded arcade, surmounted by statues of saints and popes.
As we walked forward, we could see no signs or signposts to show what lay in which direction, but our map indicated that the Sistine Chapel was round to the right, behind the body of Saint Peters. And so we joined the l—o—n—g queue that seemed to stretch forward in that direction. It moved slowly, and we were glad the weather was neither rainy nor sunny.
But it was a long time before we passed security, and found ourselves irrevocably committed to St Peter’s, not the Sistine Chapel. Irrevocably because, as an attendant told us when we consulted him, the Sistine Chapel closes earlier than our guidebook indicated, and was further away than we could walk in the time available.
We were disappointed; if we could see only one of the two (and it was our last day in Rome) , we’d rather it was the Sistine Chapel. We’ve always wanted to see whether the floor really looks like the famous painting titled, “Floor of the Sistine Chapel”, in an old spoof art collection … The disappointment rather marred our appreciation of St Peter’s, which was further reduced by the dim lighting which meant that photography, while permitted for once, was almost impossible with our little camera with its weak flash. We thought that the only photograph we’d managed to take inside the cathedral that shows much detail was the Pieta, and that came out blurry (click on it to see); but it’s amazing what a little photo manipulation with a software package can achieve (though the results—see samples below—are rather grainy).
Nonetheless, it was moving to see this famous and beautiful icon “in the flesh”, as it were. Close
to the entrance, it provided a temporary focus which we felt was rather lacking elsewhere in the cathedral. Sure, the architecture is stunning (see what Picasa2 made of our photo of the dome, which originally showed just a tiara of white blobs amidst a sea of black), and the artworks plentiful and of finest quality, but overall, in our rather depressed mood, we found St Peter’s was too vast, hollow, and ornate, or maybe we were all vasted- and ornated-out by this time.
So we were pleased to find the bronze statue of St Peter himself, the first Pope and the “rock” (Greek, Petros) on which the Church was founded. As we knew from our guidebooks, pilgrims have come for centuries to pay their respects by kissing the statue’s foot, though nowadays most touch it rather than kiss it. When we were there, the area round the statue was crowded with visitors, some hurrying on to see the next thing, some pausing to say a prayer, and others posing to have their photo taken. It's a way to find some personal meaning in a place where one might otherwise be overwhelmed by the scale and magnificence of it all.
Don had read of the exciting excavations that had led to the discovery, during World War II, of what had to be St Peter’s tomb in the catacombs below the Vatican. The bones found within it couldn’t be said for certain to be the Saint’s, but Don was thrilled nonetheless to see the new tomb, within the basilica itself, to which they were subsequently “translated” (to use the jargon).
Besides the architectural treasures, there were many beautiful artworks, including some stunning mosaics (like the one reproduced here, showing St Peter calling down God’s punishment on Ananias and Sapphira), made of tesserae so minute, we thought at first we were looking at paintings.
Outside again in the piazza, we bought the inevitable magneti, then rejoine
d the open-top bus to complete our tour. Once again the bus mostly moved too fast for satisfactory photography, at least past “the good bits”, though there was a lot of congestion which meant the bus had to stop in places where we could get some “character shots”. (You’ll probably have to click on the photo to make out what the sign says.)
The tour took us behind the foro Adriano which we saw from the front yesterday, and also rounded the Coliseum and, passing the Circo Massimo, gave Don a second chance at photographing the 2nd-Century BC Temple of Vesta (so-called; it was probably dedicated to Hercules, in fact), one of the two best-preserved pagan temples in Rome. (All he managed from the bus yesterday was a hurried snap of the trees at the back!)
We alighted at the corso Vittorio Emanuelle and walked back to the Largo di Torre Argentina (passing this statue of a literary gentleman with a seagull on his head—a bizarre subject for a statue, we thought), to look for somewhere we could take dinner outside, on the pavement; but the footpaths were crowded and noisy. We decided we’d try the viale Trastevere, across the river, but found that the trams were either broken down or on strike—at any rate, not available—and had been replaced by buses. The first was too packed out to get on, but there seemed to be lots of them and we were soon heading south (standing, because this one was packed too) and crossing the ponte Garibaldi into Trastevere (“the town ‘across the Tiber’”).
We got off at the second stop after the bridge, but then had to walk some way along a busy street until we found a restaurant called Il Teatro di Mangiafuoco. (It gets 924 Google hits, but they’re all in Italian, so you’ll have to use Google translator or Babelfish if you follow the link!). This proved to be an excellent choice: a good 
menu, good wine, good food (with an unusual and wonderful entrée combining pears and soft goat cheese in a pine-nut sauce: fagottini di formaggio e pere), and excellent friendly service. Perhaps it’s our determination to speak Italian as far as possible, which admittedly isn’t very far, that has brought out the best in people during our stay in Italy; or perhaps it’s just that Italians are naturally like that. At any rate, it brought a thoroughly agreeable end to a not-quite-satisfactory day. (It also restored our faith in Italian mixed grill, disguised under the name Braciata Mangiafuoco.)
The trams were running again by the time we finished dinner, so we got back to the hotel about 21:15, with a little time left to blob and blog.
A rainy day; we got up late-ish, and after breakfast, blogged in our room and saved photos from the camera. It was almost 13:00 by the time we left the hotel, went down to the tram stop, and got on the #8.
We got off at Isola Tiberina (where we got on last night) and took
a second stroll through the Ghetto, this time taking a few photos. One thing that struck us was how here (as everywhere in Rome) ancient ruins sit cheek-by-jowl with “modern” buildings, though of course it’s often difficult to tell their real ages.Going back to the riverside, we waited to rejoin our open-top bus tour. It was late; as we found out, there was heavy traffic congestion. Our destination for the day was the Vatican, where we decided we’d do the Sistine Chapel first (since it closed early, according to the guide books), then St Peter’s, and then complete the bus tour.
Crossing the river, the bus took us again along the via della Conciliazione, which leads like an arrow into the Vatican. We stopped for lunch (beef/cheese sandwiches and "due Coca Light, per favore") before passing through the piazza Pio XII and between the ends of the twin curved colonnades which marked the entry into our eighth country since we left England; the smallest nation state in the world: the Vatican City State.
The colonnades are near-circular, and embrace the piazza San Piedro, with the façade of St Peter’s at its end. Without special equipment (i.e., with our little 5 MP digital camera), it’s impossible to get an adequate photo of the piazza; but this gives some impression of the beautiful colonnaded arcade, surmounted by statues of saints and popes.
As we walked forward, we could see no signs or signposts to show what lay in which direction, but our map indicated that the Sistine Chapel was round to the right, behind the body of Saint Peters. And so we joined the l—o—n—g queue that seemed to stretch forward in that direction. It moved slowly, and we were glad the weather was neither rainy nor sunny.
But it was a long time before we passed security, and found ourselves irrevocably committed to St Peter’s, not the Sistine Chapel. Irrevocably because, as an attendant told us when we consulted him, the Sistine Chapel closes earlier than our guidebook indicated, and was further away than we could walk in the time available.
We were disappointed; if we could see only one of the two (and it was our last day in Rome) , we’d rather it was the Sistine Chapel. We’ve always wanted to see whether the floor really looks like the famous painting titled, “Floor of the Sistine Chapel”, in an old spoof art collection … The disappointment rather marred our appreciation of St Peter’s, which was further reduced by the dim lighting which meant that photography, while permitted for once, was almost impossible with our little camera with its weak flash. We thought that the only photograph we’d managed to take inside the cathedral that shows much detail was the Pieta, and that came out blurry (click on it to see); but it’s amazing what a little photo manipulation with a software package can achieve (though the results—see samples below—are rather grainy).Nonetheless, it was moving to see this famous and beautiful icon “in the flesh”, as it were. Close
to the entrance, it provided a temporary focus which we felt was rather lacking elsewhere in the cathedral. Sure, the architecture is stunning (see what Picasa2 made of our photo of the dome, which originally showed just a tiara of white blobs amidst a sea of black), and the artworks plentiful and of finest quality, but overall, in our rather depressed mood, we found St Peter’s was too vast, hollow, and ornate, or maybe we were all vasted- and ornated-out by this time.
So we were pleased to find the bronze statue of St Peter himself, the first Pope and the “rock” (Greek, Petros) on which the Church was founded. As we knew from our guidebooks, pilgrims have come for centuries to pay their respects by kissing the statue’s foot, though nowadays most touch it rather than kiss it. When we were there, the area round the statue was crowded with visitors, some hurrying on to see the next thing, some pausing to say a prayer, and others posing to have their photo taken. It's a way to find some personal meaning in a place where one might otherwise be overwhelmed by the scale and magnificence of it all.
Don had read of the exciting excavations that had led to the discovery, during World War II, of what had to be St Peter’s tomb in the catacombs below the Vatican. The bones found within it couldn’t be said for certain to be the Saint’s, but Don was thrilled nonetheless to see the new tomb, within the basilica itself, to which they were subsequently “translated” (to use the jargon).
Besides the architectural treasures, there were many beautiful artworks, including some stunning mosaics (like the one reproduced here, showing St Peter calling down God’s punishment on Ananias and Sapphira), made of tesserae so minute, we thought at first we were looking at paintings.
Outside again in the piazza, we bought the inevitable magneti, then rejoine
d the open-top bus to complete our tour. Once again the bus mostly moved too fast for satisfactory photography, at least past “the good bits”, though there was a lot of congestion which meant the bus had to stop in places where we could get some “character shots”. (You’ll probably have to click on the photo to make out what the sign says.)
The tour took us behind the foro Adriano which we saw from the front yesterday, and also rounded the Coliseum and, passing the Circo Massimo, gave Don a second chance at photographing the 2nd-Century BC Temple of Vesta (so-called; it was probably dedicated to Hercules, in fact), one of the two best-preserved pagan temples in Rome. (All he managed from the bus yesterday was a hurried snap of the trees at the back!)
We alighted at the corso Vittorio Emanuelle and walked back to the Largo di Torre Argentina (passing this statue of a literary gentleman with a seagull on his head—a bizarre subject for a statue, we thought), to look for somewhere we could take dinner outside, on the pavement; but the footpaths were crowded and noisy. We decided we’d try the viale Trastevere, across the river, but found that the trams were either broken down or on strike—at any rate, not available—and had been replaced by buses. The first was too packed out to get on, but there seemed to be lots of them and we were soon heading south (standing, because this one was packed too) and crossing the ponte Garibaldi into Trastevere (“the town ‘across the Tiber’”).
We got off at the second stop after the bridge, but then had to walk some way along a busy street until we found a restaurant called Il Teatro di Mangiafuoco. (It gets 924 Google hits, but they’re all in Italian, so you’ll have to use Google translator or Babelfish if you follow the link!). This proved to be an excellent choice: a good 
menu, good wine, good food (with an unusual and wonderful entrée combining pears and soft goat cheese in a pine-nut sauce: fagottini di formaggio e pere), and excellent friendly service. Perhaps it’s our determination to speak Italian as far as possible, which admittedly isn’t very far, that has brought out the best in people during our stay in Italy; or perhaps it’s just that Italians are naturally like that. At any rate, it brought a thoroughly agreeable end to a not-quite-satisfactory day. (It also restored our faith in Italian mixed grill, disguised under the name Braciata Mangiafuoco.)The trams were running again by the time we finished dinner, so we got back to the hotel about 21:15, with a little time left to blob and blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment