1 post tagged “vatican”
We were promised that today is going to be a long day with a lot of walking. We had to get up early but at least we didn't have to get our bags ready because we would stay in the same hotel tonight. We arrived our first stop of the day, Vatican, at about 7:30am and the queue of people waiting to enter was already few hundred meters long and this was only the group entry queue. The general admission doesn't start until 10am and there were already a lot of people queuing in the general admission queue. They would have to wait for more than 3 hours before they would be allowed to go in. As for us, since we had group entry tickets, we were allowed to go in at around 8am.
Vatican is a place you could easily spend days in, if only just for its huge art collections from all over the world. In fact, our tour guide told us, you would find most of the original Roman sculptures in Vatican as the popes in the medieval age liked to collect all sort of fine art items from all over the world and you couldn't find a better place than Rome if you were in to classical fine art sculptures. That is a good news for us because now we can look at all the Roman sculptures under one roof.
We are not Christians but that didn't stop us from appreciating the great effort put in by the architects, painters, sculptors and builders to build and decorate places like Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. Sistine Chapel is famous for its frescoes painted by none other than the great Michelangelo. We spent half an hour inside the Sistine Chapel, marveling the skills of the great man. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgment on the wall is something you must see by yourself if you want to fully appreciate it. What impressed me most was that when I looked at the ceiling, I could tell you if most of the architectural arches extended from the side walls all the way to the ceiling were actually there, or they were simply painted on by Michelangelo. Today we know that most of them were painted on by Michelangelo but it fooled many people when it was first revealed in 1512. In a way, I actually like the fact that no photo was allowed in the Sistine Chapel. It forced me to focus my attention on the Last Judgment and the ceiling, not the settings of my camera.
After a quick self-massage on our necks to ease the neck pain induced by the constant up-looking inside the Sistine Chapel, we entered the crown jewel of the Christian faith (I think it is okay for me to say that, right?), St. Peter's Basilica, which is also the biggest Christian church in the world. I could only found one word in my limited vocabulary to describe the basilica. It is BIG. Once again, no expense had been spared when building the basilica and it shows just about everywhere you look. I was particularly impressed by the High Altar, for it was simply gigantic. We also visited the a crypt under St Peter's Basilica, which is the final resting place of many popes.
After lunch, we went to the must-see landmark of Rome, the Colosseum. May be I have seen it too many times on the books and TV, I didn't feel as excited as I thought I would when I finally get to see it myself. I learned some interesting facts about the Colosseum today, though: all games held in the Colosseum were free and a proper entrance was printed on each of the tickets issued. By using the proper entrance, between 45,000 and 73,000 Roman citizens can populated the Colosseum in as little as 15 minutes. Try to do the same thing at MCG!
The ancient ruin of various buildings near the Colosseum gave us some ideas on how wealthy and power the Roman Empire was. I mean the Romans didn't like to build small buildings. Everything they built had to be big, majestic, highly decorated and strong enough to last forever.
The next stop was to visit the ancient Catacombs of San Sebastiano just outside the old Rome city wall. A catacomb is actually a complex of underground burial site and many catacombs in Rome was used by Pagans long before the Christians moved in. The Catacombs of San Sebastiano was once the resting place of St. Sebastian but his remains was later moved to the basilica built on top of the catacombs. We were told repeatedly that we must stay close to the guide at all time as it was very easy to get disoriented and lost in the underground maze. I would stay very close to the guide even if he didn't tell me so. Imagine you were in a underground maze that were once filled with dead bodies and if you strayed away from the dimly lit path all you would see nothing but a abyss of darkness. Occasionally we would see people moving slowly in the distance and our guide said they were just people from other guided tours. I hope he was right. The catacombs were once used to hide the bodies of Christians back in the time when the Roman Emperor was less than friendly to the Christians in Rome. The remains of St. Peter and St. Paul were once hidden in Catacombs of San Sebastiano.
Our last excursion in Rome after dinner was to visit the Trevi Fountain, arguably the most beautiful fountain in Rome. We followed the tradition and tossed three coins into the fountain over our shoulder and made three wishes. The water wasn't in the fountain tonight but it still looked very beautiful.
Legend says that if you toss a coin into the fountain over your shoulder, you will one day return to the eternal city.
