Courtney researched the small towns of Italy before we left on our trip, pouring through books and taking copious notes to select the best ones to visit during our last week there, when we would have a rental car to travel through Umbria and Tuscany. So at breakfast in Assisi on our second morning there, she told me the itinerary for the day and we pulled out a map to chart our course.
We would be driving on the Super Strada 75 West to Perugia and from there would transfer to E 45 South to Todi and then onto winding State Road 448 West to Orvieto. Mind you, this was only my second day with the car and the first day of driving had proven harrowing.
We checked out of our palace apartment on our last morning in Florence and waited with all of our luggage at a taxi stand down the street. There were already three people in line there, one looked like a fashion model dressed in a sheer shirt/dress? and boots, and the others were a pair of housecoat clad Italian women in their upper years who were talking animatedly into their cell phones. It seemed that they had all been standing there for quite a while and could not get taxis to stop. Without an alternative, we took up waiting along side of them and watched as the drama unfolded. They hailed cabs that already had people riding inside, and stuck their heads into open windows when the drivers slowed down. Back and forth they went to nearby stores to try to get better cell reception as they dialed frantically on their phones until finally, two cabs stopped to take the girl and then the women to their destinations. After 45 minutes or so, a cab stopped for us too, but not before we called our rental car agent and told him we might not be able to make it. He advised us that the city buses were on strike that day and that all of the cabs were full. We would have to hoof it, he said. But to our relief a driver did finally stop, and he said he was asked to come for us by another driver...could it have been those hardworking Italian women who had seen to it that we would be taken care of as well?
At the rental car agency we were shown to our car and given a brief "Cheeri-o!" We pulled out of the parking lot and into the Florentine traffic, not fully understanding much about the direction we were heading in or what the traffic signs meant. But we were on our way and happy to be leaving the overcrowded town of Florence.
We made our way onto the Autostrade A1 Toll Road and soon learned to keep in the right hand lane where the trucks were driving. Every time I got into the left lane to pass, a car would rocket into my rear view mirror and impatiently wait for me to get back over again. We drove through tunnels before I could figure out how to turn my headlights on, but luckily for us they were illuminated from inside. I never really located the speed limit signs, but tried to keep up with traffic. Oh, did I mention that the car was a stick shift? Luckily I had learned to drive one when I was a teen, but it had been about twenty years since I had used a clutch...but that worked itself out pretty quickly. The one problem I had though, was in not being able to locate the parking brake. This inconvenience meant that when I stopped the car, it began to roll. And in Assisi it was very hilly. And in Todi and in Orvieto....So after sending my mother and daughter out of the car for whatever we needed when we stopped, I used my time sitting there with the footbrake on to eventually discover that I could park the car in gear and also push a little button marked "P" that prevented the car from rolling, no matter how hard I pushed on it when I stepped out!
So with those competencies under my belt, we headed out for a day of driving in the green countryside dotted with castle-topped hill towns and pointy evergreen trees lining the horizon. Our first stop was Todi and after a harrowing time of driving through the narrow city gate and up and down a few treacherously skinny streets, we parked our car in a city parking lot and climbed up the hill to the magnificent church, built in the 13th century, at the top. It was Sunday and mass was just beginning, so we happily stayed for the liturgy, as almost all were, in Italian. I could follow along with the prayers and the responses pretty well, and used my Magnificat to read along as the bible passages were proclaimed.
Soon we were off to the parking lot and to our car, and after driving up to two "Do Not Enter" signs (at least I think they were, as there were no words, only symbols on their signs), I drove down a step hill then hugged a building as my car climbed at an impossible incline and twisted out onto the street above. And on to Orvieto we went, stopping at a bridge to eat in a bit of shade along the river the lunches we packed for our journey.
"So, why are we going to Orvieto?" I asked my daughter, somewhat hoping to get out of the second half of this trip.
"Oh, you'll see!" she grinned with a mischievous smile. "There is something for you and something for me there, and you won't be disappointed!!"
After another hour of driving or so, we made it into the town and safely parked our car. Then out into the streets we went, climbing the hill through wider avenues this time until we came to the top. There were lots of restaurants and shops here and the town seemed rather affluent. We walked past jewelry stores and pottery shops and place after place containing religious goods for sale. Then suddenly the vista opened up to a wide piazza containing an ENORMOUS blue and white stripped church which was built in enthusiastic response to the Eucharistic Miracle that had taken place there. Here is what our guidebook has to say about it:
"In 1263 a skeptical priest named Peter of Prague passed by a few miles from Orvieto on a pilgrimage to Rome. He had doubts that the bread used in Communion could really be transformed into the body of Christ. But during Mass, as he held the Host aloft and blessed it, the bread began to bleed, running down his arms and dripping onto a linen cloth (the corporal) on the altar. The bloody cloth was brought to Orvieto where Pope Urban IV happened to be visiting. The amazed Pope declared a new holiday "Corpus Christi" (Body of Christ) and the Orvieto cathedral was build (began in 1290) to display the miraculous relic." (Rick Steve's Italy)
I was suddenly thrilled to be there, and rejoiced with Courtney that her surprise had hit a home run. After touring the church and seeing the miraculous cloth, we toured the Etruscan tunnels build beneath the city and then headed off for home. What a day!
Monday, July 2, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The Policia and Me
It wasn't until my run-in with the law that I began to feel more comfortable with and even began to like the people of Italy. Up until then most of our interactions with them had seemed to provoke indifference, impatience, and at times, outright fury. The day before, a simple request to a shopkeeper for "un toiletta" got a scowl and a "Ba!" and harsh pointing to some vague location down the road. And questions to people staffing "Tourist Information" booths got the most curt responses and the quickest ejections despite the fact that there was no one else waiting. One museum ticket seller even erupted into a fit of anger when my mother misplaced the ticket he had just sold her and asked for another one. All of this treatment left us feeling sheepish and a little afraid to ask anything of anyone!
But when we returned to our rental car parked in 2-hour space in front of Santa Maria degli Angeli church and found a 39 Euro ticket on the windshield, I decided to fight back.
An hour earlier I had parked the car, looked around for a parking meter to pay for the space, and finding none, asked a passerby whether I could park there. He said yes and so I left the car there with some confidence. When we returned to it at 7 pm, my heart sank as I saw some papers under the windshield wiper. Since the papers were written in Italian, I approached someone nearby who read them and confirmed that indeed it was a parking fine, and suggested I walk to the police office around the block to ask about it.
So my daughter and I walked across the street and down the block to a government office building and went inside. There was a large middle-aged man sitting at the desk who looked up when we walked in. Not having much Italian, I waved the ticket at him with an imploring look and shrugged my shoulders. He seemed defensive and held both of his hands up in surrender as he said, "Not me! It is from Assisi police!" and sent me out the door and on my way without any further explanation.
To be honest, I was very upset by now about the injustice of receiving a hefty fine when I had not stayed longer than allowed. So I resolved to find the police office in Assisi the next day to see if I could get the ticket rescinded.
Back at the convent where we were staying that night, I talked to one of the nuns about my plight. She was sympathetic, which helped a bit, but not overly optimistic about my being able to fight it. She told me where to find the police office in the piazza and said that a plumber who had parked at her gate while he worked at her place recently had been fined 60 Euros by the police. She and he had tried to fight it, but the town would not back down.
So off I went at 9:00 am the next day to see what could be done. I found the police office down a small alley and climbed two flights of stairs. The stairs opened into a reception room with a man, sitting with his back to me, who was talking on the phone. In front of him was a man of higher authority sitting at a desk in the next room. Neither man looked up at me as I stood awkwardly there at the reception desk. After a few minutes I noticed a sign that said in Italian "Open to the Public 9:30-12:00 Ore". So I went back downstairs and waited a half hour before returning again, this time with my mother and daughter in tow.
The man who had been on the phone earlier greeted me this time and asked me about my business there. I showed him my ticket, told him I was parked for under two hours, and asked him why I was issued it. I added that I did not want to pay it. He listened patiently to me, explained that there is a dial on the windshield of all cars and that you have to set the time of arrival on the dial before leaving your car in a timed parking space. I gently said that I didn't know about the dial, that I wasn't parked for more than two hours, and asked if the ticket could be excused. He replied, "You want to pay? You want to pay?" I shook my head no.
He said, "You have a ticket and you want not to pay?"
I nodded and replied, "That's right" and made a motion in the air of myself ripping up the ticket.
He said, "If you do not pay, you will have to write to the judge your justification."
"I'll write to the judge!" I said.
So the man at reception took my papers to the man in the office behind him and they discussed it. I felt sure that they were going to excuse my fine right then and there, for surely they could see that it was all a misunderstanding. Then the phone rang and the man helping me returned to his desk to take the call. Next, a woman walked in from the stairway with a handful of documents and stood at the counter beside me. She was agitated and began to call out to the man on the phone. Just then a policeman in a white helmet and blue uniform came in from the stairs, and the irate woman began shouting at him about her problem. This caused the man in the back office to storm in, take the phone out of the other man's hands and slam it on the desk. He then took every other phone in the office off of their hooks and slammed them down, one after the other to make his point.
So the man who had been on the phone got up, handed my ticket to the policeman and returned to the woman at the counter and began discussing her problem with her, to her exclamations of, "Perfecto! Perfecto!" He was unruffled despite all of the poor treatment he was receiving and simply dealt with whatever was the most pressing matter at hand.
The policeman was a young man in his twenties who held up the ticket and said, "You wish not to pay?" I nodded yes and he asked for my driver's license. Then he began making multiple copies of my license and stamping forms and filling in my information on them. Then he returned for my signature and told me I had two choices. I could pay the fine now or write my defense for the judge. I said I would write to the judge.
So he asked me to follow him, and my mother, daughter and I walked down the stairs, out into the street, across the piazza, and into the tourist office with him. He explained to the person there my situation. Two women suddenly appeared from the back room and the officer told them my situation too. I nodded as he talked in Italian to them as I could pick out every few words and was able to follow along. They stopped and looked at me in surprise and said, "You understand?" I said that I did nothing wrong and that I preferred to write my case to the judge rather than pay the ticket. So they gave me a desk and a pen and the name of the judge who would hear my case and then stood with me as I wrote my defense as best as I could. They were companionable and interested in what I was doing, and chatted with me as I wrote.
After I got it all down on the paper, the policeman suddenly said, "Look. You can pay me now and you will be free of all of this or you can submit your defense to the judge and pay the fine later plus a penalty for administrative costs. The judge will most likely not excuse the ticket because we were not wrong. The time on your windshield said you arrived at 2:00 pm. So the officer was right in issuing you the ticket."
I laughed as I said, "I can be free??!" and I held out my hands as if he were going to cuff them. They all laughed at this and I suddenly realized the hopelessness of my situation. None of them really had any power to release me from my ticket. At that moment I knewthat it was not the spirit of the law that mattered, but the letter of it. Even if I was parked for the allowed time, it did not matter to them. What I was really being fined for was not using the time clock on my windshield. I felt that this law took advantage of tourists who did not understand their parking system. After all, my rental car was in a virtually empty parking lot at dusk in front of a church. There was no one waiting for a parking space and yet I was slapped with the equivalent of a 49 US dollar fine. With that, I told the officer that I agreed with his advice and I paid the ticket on the spot. One of the women standing there smiled and said her son had received a similar ticket a few months ago and had to pay the fine too.
And so we were smiles all around. The officer filled out a few more forms, collected my payment, and handed me a receipt attached to the ticket and with a smile said, "You are now free. Here is your souvenir!" It may be hard to believe, but I actually left feeling good. I had made a connection with the people of Italy on a deeper level and was satisfied with the helpfulness of all who became involved. And at the very least, I had certainly gotten my money's worth!
- Posted from my iPad
But when we returned to our rental car parked in 2-hour space in front of Santa Maria degli Angeli church and found a 39 Euro ticket on the windshield, I decided to fight back.
An hour earlier I had parked the car, looked around for a parking meter to pay for the space, and finding none, asked a passerby whether I could park there. He said yes and so I left the car there with some confidence. When we returned to it at 7 pm, my heart sank as I saw some papers under the windshield wiper. Since the papers were written in Italian, I approached someone nearby who read them and confirmed that indeed it was a parking fine, and suggested I walk to the police office around the block to ask about it.
So my daughter and I walked across the street and down the block to a government office building and went inside. There was a large middle-aged man sitting at the desk who looked up when we walked in. Not having much Italian, I waved the ticket at him with an imploring look and shrugged my shoulders. He seemed defensive and held both of his hands up in surrender as he said, "Not me! It is from Assisi police!" and sent me out the door and on my way without any further explanation.
To be honest, I was very upset by now about the injustice of receiving a hefty fine when I had not stayed longer than allowed. So I resolved to find the police office in Assisi the next day to see if I could get the ticket rescinded.
Back at the convent where we were staying that night, I talked to one of the nuns about my plight. She was sympathetic, which helped a bit, but not overly optimistic about my being able to fight it. She told me where to find the police office in the piazza and said that a plumber who had parked at her gate while he worked at her place recently had been fined 60 Euros by the police. She and he had tried to fight it, but the town would not back down.
So off I went at 9:00 am the next day to see what could be done. I found the police office down a small alley and climbed two flights of stairs. The stairs opened into a reception room with a man, sitting with his back to me, who was talking on the phone. In front of him was a man of higher authority sitting at a desk in the next room. Neither man looked up at me as I stood awkwardly there at the reception desk. After a few minutes I noticed a sign that said in Italian "Open to the Public 9:30-12:00 Ore". So I went back downstairs and waited a half hour before returning again, this time with my mother and daughter in tow.
The man who had been on the phone earlier greeted me this time and asked me about my business there. I showed him my ticket, told him I was parked for under two hours, and asked him why I was issued it. I added that I did not want to pay it. He listened patiently to me, explained that there is a dial on the windshield of all cars and that you have to set the time of arrival on the dial before leaving your car in a timed parking space. I gently said that I didn't know about the dial, that I wasn't parked for more than two hours, and asked if the ticket could be excused. He replied, "You want to pay? You want to pay?" I shook my head no.
He said, "You have a ticket and you want not to pay?"
I nodded and replied, "That's right" and made a motion in the air of myself ripping up the ticket.
He said, "If you do not pay, you will have to write to the judge your justification."
"I'll write to the judge!" I said.
So the man at reception took my papers to the man in the office behind him and they discussed it. I felt sure that they were going to excuse my fine right then and there, for surely they could see that it was all a misunderstanding. Then the phone rang and the man helping me returned to his desk to take the call. Next, a woman walked in from the stairway with a handful of documents and stood at the counter beside me. She was agitated and began to call out to the man on the phone. Just then a policeman in a white helmet and blue uniform came in from the stairs, and the irate woman began shouting at him about her problem. This caused the man in the back office to storm in, take the phone out of the other man's hands and slam it on the desk. He then took every other phone in the office off of their hooks and slammed them down, one after the other to make his point.
So the man who had been on the phone got up, handed my ticket to the policeman and returned to the woman at the counter and began discussing her problem with her, to her exclamations of, "Perfecto! Perfecto!" He was unruffled despite all of the poor treatment he was receiving and simply dealt with whatever was the most pressing matter at hand.
The policeman was a young man in his twenties who held up the ticket and said, "You wish not to pay?" I nodded yes and he asked for my driver's license. Then he began making multiple copies of my license and stamping forms and filling in my information on them. Then he returned for my signature and told me I had two choices. I could pay the fine now or write my defense for the judge. I said I would write to the judge.
So he asked me to follow him, and my mother, daughter and I walked down the stairs, out into the street, across the piazza, and into the tourist office with him. He explained to the person there my situation. Two women suddenly appeared from the back room and the officer told them my situation too. I nodded as he talked in Italian to them as I could pick out every few words and was able to follow along. They stopped and looked at me in surprise and said, "You understand?" I said that I did nothing wrong and that I preferred to write my case to the judge rather than pay the ticket. So they gave me a desk and a pen and the name of the judge who would hear my case and then stood with me as I wrote my defense as best as I could. They were companionable and interested in what I was doing, and chatted with me as I wrote.
After I got it all down on the paper, the policeman suddenly said, "Look. You can pay me now and you will be free of all of this or you can submit your defense to the judge and pay the fine later plus a penalty for administrative costs. The judge will most likely not excuse the ticket because we were not wrong. The time on your windshield said you arrived at 2:00 pm. So the officer was right in issuing you the ticket."
I laughed as I said, "I can be free??!" and I held out my hands as if he were going to cuff them. They all laughed at this and I suddenly realized the hopelessness of my situation. None of them really had any power to release me from my ticket. At that moment I knewthat it was not the spirit of the law that mattered, but the letter of it. Even if I was parked for the allowed time, it did not matter to them. What I was really being fined for was not using the time clock on my windshield. I felt that this law took advantage of tourists who did not understand their parking system. After all, my rental car was in a virtually empty parking lot at dusk in front of a church. There was no one waiting for a parking space and yet I was slapped with the equivalent of a 49 US dollar fine. With that, I told the officer that I agreed with his advice and I paid the ticket on the spot. One of the women standing there smiled and said her son had received a similar ticket a few months ago and had to pay the fine too.
And so we were smiles all around. The officer filled out a few more forms, collected my payment, and handed me a receipt attached to the ticket and with a smile said, "You are now free. Here is your souvenir!" It may be hard to believe, but I actually left feeling good. I had made a connection with the people of Italy on a deeper level and was satisfied with the helpfulness of all who became involved. And at the very least, I had certainly gotten my money's worth!
- Posted from my iPad
Monday, June 25, 2012
City of Peace
Although we've been to other hill towns in our last few days in Tuscany and Umbria, Assisi, for me, is the crown jewel in a land of rolling hills and fields of sunflowers, and green trees pointing up to the ever-blue skies. From our balcony we can survey the farming landscape dotted with evergreen trees and the tiled roof tops and the bell towers and domes on the many churches that populate this tiny town. In the afternoon a windy breeze sweeps up the hillside and cools us off as we rest in our room to escape from the midday heat. There is a palpable peace here that is a soothing tonic for the soul. St. Francis and St. Clare, pray for us!
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Oh, Assisi!
Saturday, June 23, 2012 Assisi, Italy
"When I got to Assisi, Milan, Florence and Rome completely disappeared from my memory and all the rest besides, so captivated was I by the gentle landscape, so miraculously evangelical and Franciscan, by the delightful churches, by a wealth of happy memories and by that noble breed of men, the Umbrian peasants who are richly endowed in good looks, physical strength, a joyful disposition and gentleness.
Little had I dreamt that such a marvelous place existed. I would have stayed for the rest of my life -if only women were accepted - at the tiny monastery of the Carceri, an hour and fourteen minutes walk up the mountainside from Assisi. No more heavenly and tranquilizing sight exists than Umbria as seen from up there. St. Francis certainly knew how to choose the most ravishing spots in which to practice poverty: He was far from being an ascetic..." Simone Weil, 1936.
"When I got to Assisi, Milan, Florence and Rome completely disappeared from my memory and all the rest besides, so captivated was I by the gentle landscape, so miraculously evangelical and Franciscan, by the delightful churches, by a wealth of happy memories and by that noble breed of men, the Umbrian peasants who are richly endowed in good looks, physical strength, a joyful disposition and gentleness.
Little had I dreamt that such a marvelous place existed. I would have stayed for the rest of my life -if only women were accepted - at the tiny monastery of the Carceri, an hour and fourteen minutes walk up the mountainside from Assisi. No more heavenly and tranquilizing sight exists than Umbria as seen from up there. St. Francis certainly knew how to choose the most ravishing spots in which to practice poverty: He was far from being an ascetic..." Simone Weil, 1936.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Waking Up in Florence
Mornings are my favorite time in Florence. At about 6:15 the sun shines through my open bedroom window as it is rising. As I wake up I can hear the swallows winging round and round above the red tiled rooftops overhead. Looking out, it is so peaceful to see them rising above the tightly packed houses and private gardens below, a clear blue sky silhouetting them as they chirp and dip and soar. Then church bells ring in the distance and I notice how so very quiet it is...all the tour groups who clog the narrow streets in the afternoons are secreted away behind tall wooden doors and sleeping the effects of the long, hot days away. Today is another new day...I wonder what awaits?
Monday, June 18, 2012
Benvenuti a Firenze!
Rome is already behind us and I woke up this morning in a palace in St. Croce, Firenze. We took a high speed train that brought us here in less than two hours. Florence is hot (in the 90's this week after a string of 70 and 80 degree days in Rome) and flooded with 20 something kids...and my daughter fell in love with it immediately and asked if we could move our family here "immediatamente!"
We were welcomed into the apartment by a member of the family who owns the palace to watch a medieval spectacle from her windows which are on the other side and open out onto St. Croce square. The town had constructed a temporary arena in the tight space between the church and the other buildings lining the piazza to welcome in the athletes of this part of the country to play an odd game that seemed to combine bare knuckle boxing, wrestling, and rugby...all done in the hot sun by players wearing strange pantaloons and running on a sand floor. It was thrilling to watch from such important windows and so Gail and I imagined we were royalty, trying not to yawn or grimace lest the crowds and tv cameras below catch us at an (in)opportune moment!
Afterward we had our first home-cooked dinner, thanks to a grocery run through the crowds gathered for the spectacle and special passes permitting us to go in and out in the tightly secured area of the square. We had chicken parmesan and a fresh rocket salad with the best red and juicy grape tomatoes I have ever had. We drank a little red wine and a licorice liquor before taking a walk at 10:00 PM after the streets had cooled off and quieted down from all of the festive commotion.
This morning I rose at 7:00 am with the sunlight coming through my shuttered windows and illuminating the vaulted and decorative ceiling above. I am well rested and eager to see what lies before us today...it is all literally outside of our windows!
We were welcomed into the apartment by a member of the family who owns the palace to watch a medieval spectacle from her windows which are on the other side and open out onto St. Croce square. The town had constructed a temporary arena in the tight space between the church and the other buildings lining the piazza to welcome in the athletes of this part of the country to play an odd game that seemed to combine bare knuckle boxing, wrestling, and rugby...all done in the hot sun by players wearing strange pantaloons and running on a sand floor. It was thrilling to watch from such important windows and so Gail and I imagined we were royalty, trying not to yawn or grimace lest the crowds and tv cameras below catch us at an (in)opportune moment!
Afterward we had our first home-cooked dinner, thanks to a grocery run through the crowds gathered for the spectacle and special passes permitting us to go in and out in the tightly secured area of the square. We had chicken parmesan and a fresh rocket salad with the best red and juicy grape tomatoes I have ever had. We drank a little red wine and a licorice liquor before taking a walk at 10:00 PM after the streets had cooled off and quieted down from all of the festive commotion.
This morning I rose at 7:00 am with the sunlight coming through my shuttered windows and illuminating the vaulted and decorative ceiling above. I am well rested and eager to see what lies before us today...it is all literally outside of our windows!
Saturday, June 16, 2012
A Visit to St. Peter's Basilica
Friday June 15, 2012
It was 6:00 AM and I couldn't sleep in... was it because the jet lag was behind me or because I couldn't wait to get started on THE DAY, when I was finally going to visit Vatican City? Either way, it was three hours before everyone was up, and after conferring with the guidebooks (especially Rick Steve's), we felt it would be better to go in the late afternoon, rather than chancing a long wait in the sun to buy tickets to the Museum and Sistine Chapel before touring St. Pete's.
But I realized that I wasn't nearly as interested in experiencing the "whole tour" as I was in simply walking into the Basilica and just soaking it in. So we opted to "divide and conquer," with Courtney and Charlie leading the way (and Mom and Gail following) to tour the ruins of the Ancient Roman Forum and I heading off for the Basilica...and we decided to meet at 2:00 or 3:00 to see the Vatican Museum together.
So I walked down the 66 stairs from our apartment to the street, and then down a few vias to the Metro station in Barberini Piazza. Hurrying off by myself in the cool morning air reminded me of my years in Manhattan when I walked to work in the city. I rode the A-Line Metro from Barberini to Ottaviano and followed signs on the several block walk to St. Peter's Square. I arrived by 9:30 am and the sun was still rising on the largely empty arena as I walked through the metal detectors and up the long entrance to the largest church in the world! A Swiss Guard stood in a domed passage way and added a touch of elegance to the scene as I walked through the huge doors and into St. Peter's Basilica. The church is beautiful. The church is ornate. The church is impossibly large with its beyond-high ceilings and wide open corridors. But the church is not cold. The church did not make me feel small and insignificant. Instead, I felt welcomed and embraced...was it the marble floors, warm paintings, tall sculptures rising up the walls, ceilings of gold, or Michelangelo's famous dome that made me feel that way? Or was it the mysterious presence of Christ? Perhaps a bit of each...
In the first side chapel on the right is the Pieta, an elegant marble statue depicting the Virgin Mary holding Christ in her lap after He has been taken down from the cross. It was carved by Michelangelo when he was in his early 20s and it is easily the most moving piece of artwork in the entire church. Second for me is the columned Bernini canopy situated under the dome and over the main altar and St. Peter's resting place, which is illumined by oil lamps gently draping the staircase down to his crypt. Next for me in importance was the stained glass window of the Holy Spirit dove, which is directly behind this main altar...which I especially noticed when I returned late in the day with my family.
Since I was by myself, I took some time in the adoration chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and at the burial place of Blessed John Paul II. I felt welcomed and at home there and glad to be able to linger as long as I liked.
After an hour or so I was back in St. Peter's Square, in search the "toilette," a water fountain, and a gift shop. Another hour spent, I walked out of "the walls" and onto the Roman sidewalk, past hat vendors and tour guide hawkers and waiters inviting people into their restaurants, cars and motorbikes, and people coming toward me and St. Peter's in droves. Still relaxed and at peace from the serene atmosphere in the church, I walked a few blocks before spotting people spilling out onto the sidewalk from a small side-street pizzeria. I went in to check it out. What I found was two brusque girls wielding machete-like knives as they carved up their delicious pizzas with thin cracker-like crusts and tersely hustled their customers out the door. There were small woven mats scattered on the steps outside, so I pulled one up and happily ate my lunch and then topped it off with two scoops of gelato: cream caramel and licorice! (But not a combination I would recommend...:))
It was 6:00 AM and I couldn't sleep in... was it because the jet lag was behind me or because I couldn't wait to get started on THE DAY, when I was finally going to visit Vatican City? Either way, it was three hours before everyone was up, and after conferring with the guidebooks (especially Rick Steve's), we felt it would be better to go in the late afternoon, rather than chancing a long wait in the sun to buy tickets to the Museum and Sistine Chapel before touring St. Pete's.
But I realized that I wasn't nearly as interested in experiencing the "whole tour" as I was in simply walking into the Basilica and just soaking it in. So we opted to "divide and conquer," with Courtney and Charlie leading the way (and Mom and Gail following) to tour the ruins of the Ancient Roman Forum and I heading off for the Basilica...and we decided to meet at 2:00 or 3:00 to see the Vatican Museum together.
So I walked down the 66 stairs from our apartment to the street, and then down a few vias to the Metro station in Barberini Piazza. Hurrying off by myself in the cool morning air reminded me of my years in Manhattan when I walked to work in the city. I rode the A-Line Metro from Barberini to Ottaviano and followed signs on the several block walk to St. Peter's Square. I arrived by 9:30 am and the sun was still rising on the largely empty arena as I walked through the metal detectors and up the long entrance to the largest church in the world! A Swiss Guard stood in a domed passage way and added a touch of elegance to the scene as I walked through the huge doors and into St. Peter's Basilica. The church is beautiful. The church is ornate. The church is impossibly large with its beyond-high ceilings and wide open corridors. But the church is not cold. The church did not make me feel small and insignificant. Instead, I felt welcomed and embraced...was it the marble floors, warm paintings, tall sculptures rising up the walls, ceilings of gold, or Michelangelo's famous dome that made me feel that way? Or was it the mysterious presence of Christ? Perhaps a bit of each...
In the first side chapel on the right is the Pieta, an elegant marble statue depicting the Virgin Mary holding Christ in her lap after He has been taken down from the cross. It was carved by Michelangelo when he was in his early 20s and it is easily the most moving piece of artwork in the entire church. Second for me is the columned Bernini canopy situated under the dome and over the main altar and St. Peter's resting place, which is illumined by oil lamps gently draping the staircase down to his crypt. Next for me in importance was the stained glass window of the Holy Spirit dove, which is directly behind this main altar...which I especially noticed when I returned late in the day with my family.
Since I was by myself, I took some time in the adoration chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and at the burial place of Blessed John Paul II. I felt welcomed and at home there and glad to be able to linger as long as I liked.
After an hour or so I was back in St. Peter's Square, in search the "toilette," a water fountain, and a gift shop. Another hour spent, I walked out of "the walls" and onto the Roman sidewalk, past hat vendors and tour guide hawkers and waiters inviting people into their restaurants, cars and motorbikes, and people coming toward me and St. Peter's in droves. Still relaxed and at peace from the serene atmosphere in the church, I walked a few blocks before spotting people spilling out onto the sidewalk from a small side-street pizzeria. I went in to check it out. What I found was two brusque girls wielding machete-like knives as they carved up their delicious pizzas with thin cracker-like crusts and tersely hustled their customers out the door. There were small woven mats scattered on the steps outside, so I pulled one up and happily ate my lunch and then topped it off with two scoops of gelato: cream caramel and licorice! (But not a combination I would recommend...:))
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