Mamma Mia, It's Italia!

Rome, Day 2

The sound of a loud foghorn interrupted my dream of Italian men on vespas. “EEEEE-OOOOOOOO!” Sirens began to follow, and the smiling Italian men in my dreams disappeared. It was 7:30am, and my alarm was on full volume.

Those of you who know me know that I am not a morning person – I still consider 10AM to be the wee hours of the morning. However, when I’m on vacation I become a drill sergeant. “Seven hundred hours – rise from the cots! Eight hundred precisely – march to site!” I don’t think Mike was properly warned.

An hour later, I dragged Mike out of the hotel and we made our way to the shining Vatican City. We started with the Vatican museums, and I felt a bit in awe to be standing inches away from a Bernini model, a Michelangelo statue, Laocoon, and a million other pieces I have studied since high school. Knowing that Mike gets antsy in museums (“too many people and too many old things”), we quickly made our way through the Apostolic Palace. Inside was beyond one’s imagination. Every inch of every room was covered in the most minute details. Sculptures, paintings, frescoes, tapestries, woodwork – every available space was used as a canvas. The colors were bold and bright – deep reds and blues were as bright today as they were 500 years ago. The sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows made the abundant gold flecks throughout the room flicker and shine. In a word, it was stunning. And then we entered the famous Sistine Chapel.

When you step into the chapel by the altar, your eyes immediately jump upwards, and what you see will amaze you. Michelangelo has never ceased to astonish me, but I was speechless as I stood under The Last Judgment. The countless characters on the wall are not simply painted – they come alive. You can almost see them moving, their robes shifting as they point and their eyes shining as they speak. What’s more, they seem to be coming out of the walls. Repeatedly I kept rubbing my eyes and saying to Mike, “They look 3-D!” I’m still amazed how Michelangelo managed to make each character come alive, all leading to the climatic centerpiece in “The Creation of Adam”.

It took Mike leading me by the hand and pulling me out to continue onward. I had no idea I was about to see something even grander, even more profound and impacting.

                                                *****

No matter what perspective you see it from, a simple glimpse of St. Peter’s Basilica will give you chills. It possesses both beauty and a determined power that instantly earns your deepest respect. Seeing how Mike and I always do everything backwards we started touring the Basilica not from the ground level but from the roof. I highly recommend this, though. We climbed the 551 stairs (Mike counted each one) up to the cupola. From there, you are standing on the inside rim of the dome, miles above the crowded Basilica below. As we looked at the beauty beneath us, we could hear the faint singing from Mass being said just below us. One of the most overpowering moments was closing my eyes on the cupola and listening to the beautiful Alleluia being sung. Standing so high in the air, it felt more like we were listening to the angels in Heaven singing a joyous praise. I did not think St. Peter’s could surprise me anymore. And then it did.

When we actually entered the Basilica through the ground level entrance, I was in awe. Like the Palace, every single inch of space, floor to ceiling, was an artistic tribute to the power and beauty of God. But every fresco, every ounce of gold, every detail was lost when you looked upon the huge wooden altar in the center of the church. It is simple, in comparison to the jewel-encrusted walls surrounding it, and yet it stands over something infinitely more valuable – St. Peter’s tomb. As I slowly approached this striking feature, I heard a voice, loud and distinct: “Upon this rock, I will build my Church.” This Scripture echoed repeatedly in my head: “Upon this rock, I will build my Church; upon this rock, I will build my Church.” How many times had I heard this spoken in Church before? Countless times, but never had it become more real than in that very moment, when I stood face to face with that Rock, protected in that Church. There, right in front of me, was the heart of the Church, the same Church that Jesus began and the same Church that continues today. It was beautiful – magnificent – so beautiful that it brought me to my knees in that very spot. And as I was falling, I noticed that I was not the only one so impacted. All around me, people had heard the same call and had fallen to their knees. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life, if not the most profound. I knew, beyond a doubt, that I was in the presence of God.

After that climatic experience, I walked out with a deeper sense of self and my place in the world. Mike and I walked out of Vatican City slowly, allowing the powerful experience to linger as long as possible. But, hunger eventually swung our minds in a new direction, and when Mike saw a stand full of sweets, the silence was broken. We took our bountiful feast into the shadows of Castel Sant’Angelo and ate in what was the old moat surrounding the castle. Our sightseeing was not over yet, though. After our rest, we hit the Piazza Navona, which holds Bernini’s famous “Four Rivers” fountain (which plays an important role in Dan Brown’s book/movie Angels and Demons). The water in the fountain is ice cold, which felt amazing in the 90-degree heat. We put our feet in the fountain and ate what is considered the best gelato in Italy. This is also where I discovered granita, which is like a snow-cone but a hundred times better.

After hitting the Pantheon, which is nestled randomly in the middle of an intersection, we went back to the hotel for a much-needed rest, and decided to call it a day for sight-seeing. We had seen a surprisingly large amount of sights in one day, and I was very impressed with us (especially with Mike, who typically despises sight-seeing of any kind. I suspect he was tagging along just for my sake, but I appreciated his tolerance all the same). I let him off the hook for the rest of the day, as I secretly had another day of sight-seeing planned tomorrow.

The Vatican

Spanish Steps

Below the Spanish Steps