The Vatican and Saint Peter's Basilica - our last day in Rome

It was our last full day in Rome and we started it with 9:00 reservations at the Vatican Museum, one of Europe's top houses of art from ancient statues to Christian frescoes to modern paintings and the ever so glorious Sistine Chapel.  We figured on spending at least half of our day there and we certainly did, making our way through the 4 miles of displays, the Sistine Chapel, and through the entire Basilica including a climb to the top!



A tiny scale model of Vatican City, inside the museum



The Egyptian Museum was probably one of my favourite areas of the entire museum, I just found it most interesting probably because of the age of most of the pieces and the fact that we saw a REAL MUMMY! I have to say it was probably the coolest but the most creepy thing I've ever seen.  The practice of mummifying reaches its maximum diffusion even among the lower middle classes of Egyptian society during the 20th-21st dynasties (1200-950 BC).



Mummy cases in the Gregorian Egyptian Rooms of the museum



Statue of the God Anubis



Long hallway filled with Greek Statues



The ceiling was just as decorative in this hallway of maps



Walking into the Raphael Rooms of the Museum was just so unbelievable with the larger than life frescoes covering the entire surface of the room. These are not technically paintings - the color is mixed into wet plaster and when the plaster dries the painting is actually part of the wall. Can you only image the precision, accuracy and time that went into this?

Raphael Rooms - larger than life frescoes!

One of the most famous frescoes is the School of Athens.  Raphael honors the great pre-Christian thinkers, Aristotle, Plato, and company who are portrayed as the leading artists of his day.  Some of these are easily recognizable. In the centre Plato points upwards with a finger and holds his book Timeus in his hand, flanked by Aristotle with Ethics; Pythagoras is shown in the foreground intent on explaining the Diatesseron. Diogenes is lying on the stairs with a dish, while the pessimist philosopher, Heraclitus, a portrait of Michelangelo, is leaning against a block of marble, writing on a sheet of paper. Michelangelo was in those years executing the paintings in the nearby Sistine Chapel. On the right we see Euclid, who is teaching geometry to his pupils, Zoroaster holding the heavenly sphere and Ptolemy holding the earthly sphere. The personage on the extreme right with the black beret is a self-portrait of Raphael. 

School of Athens

Next up was the anticipated Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's ceiling and his huge The Last Judgment.  There is absolutely so much going on in the Sistine Chapel that I needed about 2 hours to sit there with my guide book and understand the story that was being told.  In a nutshell here is what's displayed:

• 5,900 square feet of frescoes of biblical scenes
• Southern wall - The Stories of Moses
• Northern wall - The Stories of Jesus
• Eastern wall - The Resurrection of Christ
• The ceiling shows the history of the world before the birth of Jesus with the Nine Scenes from Genesis including beautiful pictures of The Creation of Adam and The Garden of Eden
• The altar wall is called The Last Judgment is a depiction of the Second Coming of Christ and the final and eternal judgement by God of all humanity.

The were no pictures allowed in there but definitely click on the museum link or Google it to see, it's unbelievable!  The Vatican Museum website is great for getting a more up close picture and remembering all that we saw!

We made our way over to the Basilica next.  Wow, wow, and more wow.  This is THE greatest church in Christendom and it represents the power and splendor of Rome's 2,000 year domination of the Western world.  It was built on the memory and grave of the first pope, St. Peter.  It was filled with people, all taking in the grandeur just as we were. 


Walking in the Basilica, mouth gaped open, wow factor set in.



Up in the Dome




On the top of the dome overlooking St. Peter's Square



The mercenary guards from Switzerland


There are many more pictures in the link with detail in the captions. It was a wonderful experience to have been in such an important and recognizable place in this world. After going through much of the church, visiting the crypt below, taking the elevator to the rooftop level of the dome and then climbing the additional 323 steps for spectacular views we made it back down to the ground and took the HoHo across the river to wander a few more of Rome's streets before going back to the Hotel to shower and relax.

We had covered A LOT of ground in 3 short but long days in Rome - 32 miles to be exact according to the pedometer.  We saw so much and were so happy to be able to have met friends there from so far away.  With a recommendation from Dino at the hotel desk, we had one final dinner with Matt and Korie where we went to a restaurant called Crisciotti on the Via del Buschetto that was absolutely fantastic!   


Last night all together, such a great time!


We left early Sunday morning back to Germany - a nice break from the heat I must say - but can definitely see going back to Rome as well as much more of Italy!  We has a fantastic time in this new country, ate delicious foods, experienced noteworthy history, walked a million miles, took a million pictures...you know just a typical weekend for the adventurous Hoffman's!

Link to the pictures from the day.

Rome cont. - the Colosseum and more!

After a great rest and breakfast at our hotels we walked down one of the seven hills to the ever famous and most notable monument (IMHO) in Rome - The Colosseum.

 

It was so awesome to be walking up to the Colosseum!

We took Rick's advice and headed to the Palatine Hill entrance to get our tickets where we had zero wait, walked back up the road and surpassed the 1/4 mile long line of ticket buyers to get right inside the Colosseum! In the Colosseum our awesome narrator, Korie, filled us in all of the history and important info that I've captioned in the pictures. It was really impressive to see this 50,000 seat stadium and to use my imagination to picture the battle scenes with gladiators and beasts!

The Arena

We went up to the second level for a great view of the Arch of Constantine, Roman Forum grounds, and a live archaeological dig happening right there.
 

Next we headed over to The Palatine Hill which is the center most of the 7 Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city. 

The Imperial Palace. Horses used to race around the outside.

The hill was once so filled with Emperor Palaces that later Emperors had to build out!  The Palatine hill is where the mythological story of the she-wolf describes the founding of Rome. Sounds funny but read the Wiki-Link, it's pretty good!  From the Hill we could see Circus Maximus and even St. Peters Basilica in the distance.  From there we walked directly down in the Roman Forum.  Walking into the Forum on the large basalt stones was a bit surreal thinking that Caesar Augustus walked on the same ones 2,000 years ago!

We passed the Arch of Titus which is at the head of the Forum and symbolizes Roman victory,

and made our way through the grounds as narrator Korie told us about all of the different temples inside. It's mostly rubble now but it was easy to picture it in it's prime with large white marble buildings and 40' high columns!

The House of the Vestal Virgins (below) took up a very large space and the story behind it I found quite interesting.

The rows of statues depict leading Vestal Virgins - the good ones! 

It was originally a 2 story complex where the Vestal Virgins were chosen from noble families by the age 10 when they took a vow for 30 years and (hopefully!) served her term faithfully.  If she abstained, she was given a large dowry and allowed to marry BUT if she couldn't keep her legs closed she was taken to a crypt, given bread, a lamp and buried alive.  Most suffered the latter fate but the question is...how did they check?!  Honor system?  Word of mouth?  Reputation?!?
 
Through the Forum we walked out into Capitol Hill square which was once the religious and political center of ancient Rome.  The government still resides here. 

Michelangelo's Grand Staircase leading up to Capitol Hill

Later that afternoon we split up, Matt and Korie visited the National Museum and Dave and I did the HoHo under the canopy on the upper level of the bus and giving our feet a break.  That's always a fun way to see the city from a different perspective.  When we hopped off we found our way to the Hard Rock to grab a bite...I know...shocking, but I had to claim my free gift which was a luggage tag and those are always handy.   

Passing the Palace of Justice on the HoHo

Dave at the HRC



After a little rest, a break from the sun and heat we met back up for dinner at Le Lanterna which was just around the corner from our Hotels for a scrumptious Italian dinner!

Mmmmm this Pesto Linguine was beyond delicious!

Since we were all a bit more rested we were able to stay up past dark and headed over to the Trevi to see the lights - it was so pretty, and the air was a bit cooler around the fountain which was nice :) or maybe it was the Gelato that cooled us down?

Trevi Fountain

Gelato round 2 - pistachio, tiramisu, peach, mint& choco - flavors are endless!

We stopped into a few shops, where I found some Christmas ornaments then Dave and I continued on down to the Colosseum again because we just love to see the sights at night! 

Day 2 in Rome was another great success with 27,401 steps, a little sunburn, 3 showers a piece, sore feet but great memories!

Link to 100 more of Rome's 2nd day pictures!

When in Rome, do as the Romans...

That classic advice leads to a wealth of options: Should we follow Augustus and Caesar, whose Rome is filled with spectacular ancient structures? Or Michelangelo and Da Vinci, whose city invites artistic pilgrimage? Maybe discover the romantic Rome or just the sightseers Rome?  The many charms of Rome await us!  Let's get real here - when in Rome you wash out all of your clothes in the sink because you sweaty through them, you wear sneakers even if they don't look good with your outfit (lesson learned for next time :), you drink lots of water from the numerous fountains throughout the city because you think you're going to die from the heat, you find any piece of shade you can and crowd into it, but most of all you forget all that stuff and have a fabulous time because you are in one of Europe's greatest cities!

We woke at 4:00 am at the Landhotel for a 6:20 flight out of Frankfurt-Hahn so that we had an entire day in Rome.  This had us pretty excited but we actually were more exited to meet up with our friends Matt and Korie from Nebraska that we hadn't seen since we moved to KC in 2010.  It was a quick flight to Rome and all went smooth on our first flight with Ryan Air.  We took a bus from the airport into Termini Train Station and then walked .9 miles to our hotel.  The day was already getting warm at 9:00 am!  Hotel Hiberia was great, in an excellent location within the center of the 5 major neighborhoods near Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and the Colosseum.  We only had a 1/2 hour wait to get into our room which was nice since it was early then we headed up to Hotel Zara where Matt and Korie were staying, a 5 minutes walk away.  Their reception told us that it would be a few hours before they even reached the hotel so we took a stroll around the neighborhood snapping pictures. 

Scooters, scooters, and more scooters!

One of Rome's 5 Ancient Obelisks - this is at Piazza del Quirinale

There was a cafe right next to their place which was convenient to grab a panini and wait for them to arrive.  We saw them wander up to the hotel shortly after we got back there and it was so nice to see them!  After a few minutes of catching up we all set out to explore Rome!

Beautiful domes of Rome

"People's Square" or Piazza del Popolo

Trevi Fountain

Dave in front of the Pantheon

At the Spanish Steps

We covered a lot of ground that day about 12 miles worth on foot and boy oh boy were the feet feeling it...and it was only day one! Not only did we hit some of the major sight but we also experienced the wonderful drinking fountains, and the Gelato!  I couldn't be happier about my first gelato because it was delish!  I had hazelnut and the little cone in my left was hand was an extra treat put on top of the cup!

Later that afternoon we all went back to our respective hotels and showered off the dirt and sweat from the day.  We met up for dinner and went back to the Trevi Fountain area because we wanted to see it lit up at night. After filling up on traditional Roman food, antipasti, pizza margarita and Italian beers we weren't too sure we were even going to make it till dark!  Matt & Korie headed back to rest their weary traveling bodies and Dave & I continued to explore a few more of Rome's streets before stopping into a neighborhood bar where we enjoyed our favourite Erdinger (German - I know) beer and watched the 100's if not 1000's of scooters, mopeds and Vespas zoom by.  Everyone has them and they park everywhere and anywhere they can!  All of the women drivers wearing dresses or skirts didn't even pay any mind to straddling the scooter seat.  We didn't stay too long at €8 a beer!  We did about 27,000 steps that day (I love my pedometer!) so it was time to go, plus just because there was no sun it was still hot and we were doing it all over the next day!  Back at the hotel we chatted with a nice couple who was just a table away at the same bar, Todd and Ashley from Ohio. We just love meeting people from everywhere in the world no matter where in the world we are!

LINK TO DAY 1 PICTURES - Much more detail and my usual commentary in the pictures!