Rome Day 1: St. Peters Basilica
This is the last post for Day 1 I swear!!! So where I left off, we were on the subway to Vatican City! It is pretty cool walking from one country into another, even if that country is just one city.....
Looking at Medieval drawings of the city, The Vatican used to be on the very outskirts of Rome...now it is absolutely surrounded by Rome.
So let's get to it! We weren't doing the Vatican museums on this day, we were just there to see St. Peters Basilica. This is the one that was built around the grave of St. Peter. aka Jesus' disciple.
It was awe inspiring and intimidating all at the same time. You had to literally took into the sky if you wanted to see the statues. At the bottom of the above photo is the line to get into St. Peters. It took around 45 minutes to get in, you just had to go through security.
Luckily looking up to see the statues meant you saw the amazing sky. I cannot believe how lucky we were with the weather that weekend, and my pictures are evidence of how gorgeous it was!
There is really nothing you can do to prepare yourself for the sheer size of St. Peters. It is MASSIVE. On top of the size, every inch of wall, ceiling and floor is covered in some sort of decoration and embellishment. You could spend every day of the year in there and never run out of things to look at.
Andrea said when she visited last year it was packed so much you could barely move. There were a fair amount of people there, but it was not so crowded that you could not enjoy it.
One thing that was in St. Peters that was truly amazing, one of the most famous images in all of Christianity, La Pieta by Michelangelo: the statue of Mary cradling Jesus' dead body.
It is always mind boggling to see something like this. It is one of that famous things you see and hear about all your life but you never expect to see it in person, and when it is suddenly in front of you your mind doesn't really know how to process it.
Like I said, completely covered in decoration. And it made you feel very small.
Now, in almost any building I go into, I always try to make myself remember to look at the ceiling, because you never know what you could be missing out on. At St. Peters, this is probably the best situation I ever could have applied that rule.
The ceiling was stunning! This is looking straight up into the dome of the basilica. Absolutely amazing! I am so glad I managed to snap a photo of it.
Of course there were also amazing statues decorating just about everywhere. I mostly took pictures of the statues of women, because statues of Popes are boring.
I also managed to find one dragon! There is always room in my heart, and on my camera, for dragons!
I see you little guy, getting crushed underneath some Pope.
After taking in as much as we could handle, we left St. Peters and headed off down the river. The sun was setting which created some beautiful lighting.
We also got our first look of the famous Ponte Sant'Angelo. It's original name was Pons Aelius meaning Bridge of Hadrian. It was built is 139AD by, you guessed it, the Emperor Hadrian over the Tibre River. It was renamed to its current name by Pope Gregory the 1st because supposedly an angel appeared on the roof of the castle opposite to bridge to proclaim that a plague had ended.
In a more gruesome history, in 1450 the bridge actually collapsed while a bunch of people were on it and many of them drowned. Swimming was not a skill the average person had back then...in fact I believe this was the time period where people thought if you could swim you were a witch...but don't quote me on that.
Anyways they apparently also used to hang the dead bodies of executed men off this bridge to display them to the public....gross.
We made our way to where we ate dinner that night, then back to our hotel. It was an extremely long and exhausting day, but we accomplished so much and saw so much, the pain in our feet was completely worth it!
On a bit of a side note, it was very interesting for me to see all these extravagant churches. To me, I always have thought that places of worship did not need to have much, and that to build them up to be covered in gold and grandeur was more a celebration of man's own ego than of God. I still think that, but standing in these places I certainly understand how they can enhance the feeling of worship. There was a strange sort of power that permeated all the churches we visited, that left you with a sense of awe.
Alright, we are finally moving along to day two! Exciting stuff is coming up! On day two we went back to The Vatican for the museums and down the river to an ancient tomb of an emperor that was became a medieval castle! Spectacular stuff is ahead!
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