Visiting the Vatican

October 31, 2015 - The Afternoon


Gym's Rome Travel Tips

1. Don't drive in Rome! Traffic lanes are just suggestions in this city and unless you like to try and rein in chaos, leave the driving to the pros - the locals;
2. Taxis are everywhere in Rome but make sure that you get in a white one that has a meter because some don't have meters and the "gypsy taxis" will charge too much; and,
3. Make sure to go to the Vatican and check out Michelangelo's Pieta. This magnificent sculpture struck Gym as the most impressive artwork seen on this whole trip.

The Pieta is carved with Carrera marble that can be polished to
a warm, lustrous shine, giving the figures a life-like appearance.
It is an inspiring piece of art and perhaps the artist thought so too because it is the
only artwork that Michelangelo ever signed his a to. 

For our second tour of the day, on Halloween day, we had very little time to get from ancient Rome to the Vatican, across the Tiber river and then get a quick bite of lunch. We needed to jump in a cab and hope we had enough time before the start of the afternoon tour, to find a sandwich.

The cabs in Rome reminded me of something out of the movies. The cabbies speed across the city muttering out things in Italian and look to me like they could all use some time on the couch discussing their issues with an analyst. Despite the crazed cabbies and the typical Rome traffic, we made it to the Vatican in time to have a quick lunch before our second tour. Our afternoon guide/docent, met us in the restaurant as we finished lunch. We were across the street and beneath the walls of Vatican City.
  

The docent for the afternoon's tour of the Vatican was Gregory DiPippo. That might sound like a local guide but Gregory is a native of Rhode Island and he took his undergraduate degree in Montreal, at McGill. It would prove to be challenging to keep up with Greg's long strides as he led us through the Vatican Museums, then on to the Sistine Chapel and finally into Saint Peter's Basilica. After trudging all over ancient Rome in the morning, we would walk many more kilometres in the afternoon and climb at least 20 stories of stairs. My iphone actually lost count at 10 km. and 20 stories of stairs for the day when it ran out juice well before we finished that evening.

Greg had two important rules for the day. The first rule was not to get killed crossing the street to get to the Vatican Museum and the second rule was to always try and keep up. So, even though Gym was a little stiff from a morning of scrambling over hill and dale on the cobbles of Ancient Rome, the second part of our ambitious day of touring had begun and we had to suck it up and push on (this was nothing for Mrs. Gym who is a veteran marathon runner).

Looking across a fairly busy street at the walls surrounding the Vatican  and the entrance to the "Vatican Museums"

We cleared security at the northern doors to the Vatican Museums and because we had special passes we were able to skip the lines and begin touring right away. We would sort of be working south through the various exhibit rooms to finish in Saint Peter's Basilica. It is difficult to even scratch the surface on a half-day tour of a major museum like this but I think we got a good grounding in the early exhibits we toured. This early grounding allowed us to be able to appreciate better the major artwork we would see in the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's Basilica, at the end of the tour. I can't imagine having tried to tour this massive collection of wonders on my own. I recommend Context Tours very highly not only for the knowledgeable guides but the well thought-out tour agendas that they have developed.

Below are just some of the many works of art that we saw on our sprint through the Vatican Museums:

Doubting Thomas by Guercino - Thomas is seen putting his fingers in Jesus' wound

The Transfiguration by Raphael. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo,
Raphael is considered the third great grand master from that period.

A work that may have inspired what we would see in the Sistine Chapel

Here is another work that may have inspired Michelangelo.
St. Jerome and  the lion by Leonardo da Vinci. It is notable for many reasons but
the saint's shoulder is very detailed and would have required expert knowledge of that part of the human anatomy.
The lion of course is the same one that Jerome befriended when he removed the thorn from his paw.

Fontana della Pigna is a 4-meter high pine cone fountain spout that used to stand near the Pantheon
in front of the Temple of Isis. The beautiful niche was built after the fountain was moved here in 1608.

The Laocoon Group - this massive sculpture is thought to have been sculpted by ancient
Greeks. It is described as the prototypical expression of human agony. It is huge at over 2 meters in height
and 1.6 m in width.

Apollo Belvedere - this sculpture is also over 2 meters high and it comes from the antiquities as well.
It is said to have been the inspiration for many future masters.

Of course we also visited the Sistine Chapel and it is pretty cool. This is where the cardinals all camp out when they pick a new pope. The artwork on the ceiling is by Michelangelo and he also did a magnificent Fresco of the Last Judgement at one end of the chapel. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take any pictures in there.

We then got to Saint Peter's Basilica just before they closed off the area around Saint Peter's tomb. So we were able to see the basilica's high alter above the tomb and stand there in the middle of the building to get a sense of how gigantic it  really is. As we stood there Gregory explained that we were standing above the tombs of numerous popes and many other christians that chose to be buried near St. Peter.

The massive dome of St. Peter's Basilica from the Vatican Gardens.
the dome covers an area of over 5 acres.

This is a good picture from inside the basilica. It does not give you
a very good feel for the size of the place. As I said the room above the
tomb of  St. Peter is more than 5 acres in size and the columns of
Bernini's solid bronze canopy, over the tomb are 60 feet high.In the background,
another work by Bernini is a massive stained glass window that glows through the
middle of the canopy as seen from the front doors.

Just out the front doors you look across he high, curved colonnade also designed
by Bernini to the building containing the ope's apartment. He was scheduled to greet the Sunday
morning crowd in the square the day after this picture was taken. He comes out of the room on the
far right of the building and on the second highest floor.

Light streaming through the windows high above the people coming
and going from the square into the basilica and visa versa.
The vertical height is hard to capture in a photo

Here is a close up of Bernini's dove of piece at the very opposite end
of the building from St. Peter's Square. The dove itself in the large window
is 6 feet wide.

from the steps of the basilica out past the centre of St. Peter's Square where you
can see they are setting up chairs for the Mass on Sunday morning.

The basilica from the front with the dome in the background.

A member of the elite Swiss Guard, the private army of the Vatican.

We were dog tired when Gregory left us on the front steps of the Vatican and we made our way down across the Piazza San Pietro (Saint Peter's Square) where the faithful gather the next day to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis. It was time to take a taxi back to the hotel after a long day of touring.

The next day we would just enjoy the hotel and some amazingly beautiful fall weather. On November 2, 2015 we left Rome and flew home.

So, much has happened since we left Rome and I apologize for getting this last post out so late after we left Rome. In the almost 8 months between leaving and my publishing this post today we have just been so busy that the intrepid couple has not been able to get away on vacation and chronicle any new adventures on this blog.

However, as I sit here in the Oak Room of Buckland Manor, in the Cotswolds, I am raring to tell you about the latest adventure. We arrived this morning in the U.K. on the morning of Brexit!

Gym