After Florence, my friends and I hopped on a train to Rome in order to meet up with the school for the rest of ten-day. That being said, we had a bit of trouble getting on he train. We knew that it required reservations in advance, so we tried to get them. We thought we were successful when we bought them, unfortunately we weren’t. We bought the reservations a day in advance which caused a minor mistake to take place. It turned out that the reservations we purchased were for the wrong date. In order to correct that, we tried to buy tickets for the train a second time. They were quite expensive, and as far as we knew they didn’t include the reservations. We found out shortly before getting on the train that our tickets actually were enough to get on the train because they did include the mandatory reservations.
After the fastest train ride I have ever been on (200 or so km/hr) we reached Rome. Rome was one of the biggest and most confusing cities I have ever been to. We quickly discovered that Rome only has two subway lines (apparently they can’t dig any new lines because they keep bumping into ruins) and only one station to switch between the two.
After finding our way through the subway system we caught up with the school just in time for daily Mass at a convent of some sort. After that we got some free time to explore or relax and eat. I choose to relax and eat because I was sick and still sleep deprived from the Florence endeavor.
The next day, most of the school went to the Vatican to explore and take some tours. Mary, Emily and I decided to climb the Cupola which is the dome in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Mary and I in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
A closer shot of St. Peter’s.
This is the inside of the Cupola. We ended up climbing to the top.
The view of Rome from the Cupola.
Some sort of garden inside the Vatican.
Another view of Rome from the Cupola.
After descending the Cupola we explored St. Peter’s a bit more. I apologize that most of the pictures from here on are blurry, my camera was having some problems.
Myself in front of Michelangelo's Pieta. Of all of the art that I have seen this semester, this has been my favorite piece. An interesting thing about it is that the Mary part of the statue is actually much bigger than Jesus. It was carved this way in order to make everything appear to be in scale when it is on a pedestal.
Here is one of the many altars (I guess this is the main one) within the basilica.
Here is a sculpture of St. Helena (or St. Helen), the mother of Emperor Constantine.
Here is a sculpture of St. Longinus, the Roman centurion who pierced the side of Jesus with a spear while He was on the cross. According to Tradition he converted to Christianity after the Crucifixion and was eventually martyred. His feast day is March 15th, my birthday.
After we were done exploring on our own we went outside of St. Peter’s, where we got to see the pope for the first time. We prayed the Angelus with Pope Benedict XVI in several different languages. He stayed in his apartment overlooking the giant piazza in front of St. Peter’s, and spoke into an exceptionally loud microphone. It was a unique and good experience.
Here is the crowd in front of the pope’s apartment.
This is about the best picture I got of the pope’s apartment while he was praying the Angelus with us. He is in the window with the banner hanging below it. Unfortunately my camera had relatively minor zoom capabilities.
After the Angelus, we went back into St. Peter’s for a more or less official tour. Here are a few more pictures of the basilica.
The Altar of the Lie. This is a depiction of a Bible story where two people we struck down for lying about having given all that they had for the poor. It sits outside of the sacristy as a reminder to all who come out that bearing false witness before God is a terrible crime with great punishment.
I’m not sure exactly what this was for. It was a large crest built into the floor of one corner of the basilica.
I think this is a memorial of Pope Innocent XII. He is known for the actions that he took against nepotism in the papal offices.
That is all for today, I will try to post again soon. Hopefully I will finish Rome and Assisi this week.
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