First day in Rome, June 5, 2009

            So I was a bit nervous this morning about how to get to the Sistine Chapel tour and whether it would all work out.  And it did very well. 

            But first there was a delicious breakfast downstairs, with a couple with a Texas twang sitting nearby and another American family with two young children which made me miss John and Sarah even more.

            In any case, the hotel concierge had recommended getting off at the Ciprio stop on the metro red A line.  So I did, even though it had said St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museums for the previous Octavian stop.  I did see one Vatican Museum sign when I got off and headed in that direction, but then I asked two men there.  They pointed to my right and duh, there was St. Peter’s dome rising above everything.

            I found the stairs across from the Vatican entrances easily, and there was a Viator sign, to which I nodded, and I was in that easily.  (I didn’t need my printed tickets, but I am glad that I had directions from them anyway.)   Joining this “skip the crowds Vatican museum ‘tour’ (without a tour guide), there was a little girl named Grace who was seven and whose parents were Scottish.   I thought of course of Sarah, again, and of Steven who was seven when we were last here in 2001.             It took me almost 3 hours to do the Vatican tour.  The Vatican museums and rooms went on forever and ever.  They reminded me of Versailles, only with a mostly Renaissance style supported by a pope instead of the heavy Baroque at Versailles supported by the absolute monarch Louis XIV.

            I had to leave my backpack at the entrance to the museum, and this might have been a problem to retrieve it.  There is a quick way to exit the Sistine Chapel for those on group tours to go directly to St. Peters and to skip the rest of the sculptured corridors going back to the start.  However, because my pack was back there, I would have had to have walked all the way around the outside of St. Peter’s and then the Vatican to get back to my backpack.  I started that “quick” way and found the very famous staircase that I wanted to study and photograph (Bernini’s Scala Regia),so before the real exit turnstile, I just turned around and went back into the Sistine Chapel and through as a normal tourist, got my backpack easily, and saved lots of steps.  I figured I could see St. Peter’s on a different day, and as it turned out I actually saw the pope on that Sunday, but that is a story for later on in the journal.

            Many of the students also saw the Sistine Chapel as well as St. Peter’s today.  Alex found it fairly accessible.   Amy and Chantille did a tour and learned a great deal from the guide.  Others rose really early in the morning so they only had to wait about 10 minutes in the normal line.  They were really excited that they were able to see all that they were seeing in even that first day in Rome.             After a minestrone lunch, watching the rivers of tourists climbing the hills to the Vatican museums (and already looking tired), I splurged for a taxi to take me to St. Pietro in Montorio, the location of Bramante's Tempietto.  We were way on another side of Rome, and it was a beautiful drive.  The driver waited for me to take a few shots, since the small church was not open.  But I got to see the crypt that I never knew was there!  Then he drove me to the Pantheon, and it wasn't too expensive all in all.             This was my third visit to the Pantheon, and it never fails to impress me.  It is so large, so monumental in size and composition.  The round dome floats effortlessly overhead.  The columns loom larger than life, and I noticed this time the altar and artifacts of a church.  I had not really absorbed in the past that it still is an active church.  Although the dome is not as high as Brunellschi’s, it is still quite powerful and dominant, soaring overhead perhaps more lightly and spiritually than the Duomo.  The oculus is almost a magical touch, the light of God shining through no matter what.  I guess that could be understood most powerfully in terms of content.

            I went to Piazza Navona next, but Borromoni’s S.Agnese closes between 12;30 and 4:00.  It was 3:10 and I was unwilling to wait.  But I did study the fountain more while I was there, and as I have noticed other fountains in Rome, Bernini’s Four Rivers is definitely one of the most effective by far.   He has a most effective way of getting motion into anything: human, fish, horse, water and architecture.  They almost seem alive.

            Then I walked over to Capitoline Hill. I have been trying to sit whenever possible during this trip, to think and absorb the art and architecture around me, not to rush through for the sake of knocking places off the list.  I asked a guard how much the tickets were to the museums there, and if they were worth 9 Euro, and indeed they were.  There were the parts of Constantine’s enormous stature for the Basilica of Constantine: the 8’ head, foot, knee, elbow, etc.  The original Marcus Aurelius was there, and the Etruscan wolf and Renaissance Romulus and Remus.  And reams and reams of more Roman sculpture.  This was a bit oppressive after seeing the Vatican’s corridors of similar statues, but it was still a nice stop.

            After that, about 5:00, I was pretty beat and took a bus home.  I was a bit nervous that it might not be the right bus, as it said Termini Triburnatine or something.  But, indeed, it did get me back to the train station, a short walk from my hotel on Via Vicenza.  On the way back, I stopped at the internet point to write the kids and Dave.  There were a few responses from my previous messages, and it was good to get those.  It felt really wonderful to get in touch with them again.

            The weather has been decent, mostly sunny but with a breeze so it was not too hot.  Rivers of tourists everywhere, but one can still get around. I did the metro out to the Vatican today and a bus back and was pleased not to get lost (!) and to be on time or early for most every appointment in the last few days!!  I think it may be drizzling now, but I have an umbrella.