Vatican Museums, the Sobieski Room, Rapheal's Rooms, the Sistine Chapel, the Spanish Steps at Night

Its a week after getting back from Europe...I've adjusted back to Eastern Standard time, even with Daylight Savings Time, recovered from my Traveller's Cold that I likely picked up on the 9 1/2 hour flight from Rome to Philadelphia, and now I'm finishing up my blog from the last two days of Rome...which takes some time as they were VERY full! Here's Thursday, the 18th of March, our second to last day of Rome.

Today we had a guided tour of the Vatican Museums, including Rapheal's Rooms and the Sistine Chapel. The guided tour was great as this place is massive, and doing it on your own would be daunting. Courtney and I also felt that having guided tours on the last three days of our trip was nice because by this time, at the end of our two week whirlwind tour of Europe, we didn't have the energy to do the research on our own! So being led around and literally guided to the most important sites of Rome was extremely helpful. To further prove the point, even with the guided tour, we figured out that we walked about 6 miles on this day.

Note the face on this sculpture below...Michaelangelo used this face as the model for his painting of Jesus Christ in the Sistine Chapel. Before this sculptor, faces on statues had very little emotion depicted. During this time period, this sculptor and others developed the methods to portray emotions and depth to facial expressions...prior to that most statues looked angelic with soft, serene faces. This body, with missing arms and legs, was used by Michealangelo as the model for the torso of Jesus Christ in the Sistine Chapel paintings. It was thought to be the picture of perfection in that time period as it managed to capture the human form at its best. Our guide told us that when works of art such as this are found with missing pieces, it is proper to leave them as they are rather than attempt to restore them. We saw many examples of the way different civilizations had tried to "fix" or change ancient sculptures, one example being the "fig leaves" that were put in place of a man's private parts. It was certainly funny to see these massive, muscular statues of male figures, true works of art, then you look down and see these little fig leaves that obviously were placed much later on in history. It just didn't make any sense.

No, this isn't the Pantheon, we'll see that tomorrow, this is just a regular old room in the Vatican Museums. The museums have over 2000 rooms, and all of the ones we saw were decorated to highest degree possible. My pictures won't do it justice, but I think our guide said something to the effect that if you spent one minute on every statue, sculpture, painting and tapestry in the Vatican museums, you would be in there for 12 years.

This is a bathtub. Carved out of one piece of stone, the material that it is made out of is as valuable as diamond.

The following pictures are of a long hallway filled with maps of the different states that now make up Italy. The maps are said to be 85% accurate, including the topography. All of this was done be a man hired to go to all of these places and record this information from the ground, Ignazio Danti, in the 1500's. No planes, no satellites, no cameras. And they say if you pull up Google Earth it looks exactly the same.

The ceiling...

Map of Sicily...

The following pictures are of the Sobieski Room. For those of you reading this that don't know, my mother's maiden name is Sobieski, and our family lineage can be traced back to King John III Sobieski, who is depicted in a painting by a Polish painter Jean Matejko, in his victory over the Turks in Vienna in 1683. A facinating political and military leader (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_III_Sobieski) he was closely aligned with the Holy Roman
Emporer Pope Innocent XI, which is why he has a room dedicated to him in the Vatican (usually you need to be a Saint for that) and his niece is buried in St. Peter's Basilica and has a chapel there (again, usually only Popes and Saints received that recognition).

It was neat, I had told Courtney about the "Sobieski Room" not realizing that we'd get to see it (again, 2000 rooms in the Vatican) and when our tour guide said, "This is the Sobieski Room" and Courtney and I gasped, the tour guide said, "Oh are you familiar with him?" I said, "I'm related to him!" That was fun. =)

A directional sign below makes you realize you are in the midst of greatness...Raphael, Michalangelo...

An interesting paining on one of the ceilings in Rapheal's Rooms, but not actually painted by Rapheal, "The Triumph of Christianity" over Paganism (see the fallen statue broken on the ground in front of the cross)

One of Rapheal's most famous paintings, "The School of Athens" where Rapheal depicted the great thinkers of ancient time...Plato, Aristotle, and of his time...including Michealangelo, Ptolomy, and Homer.

Next we got to see the Sistine Chapel. As part of our tour, we learned all about the Sistine Chapel, and what Michealangelo depicted in each of his paintings there in his masterpiece on the ceiling. It would take an hour to go into it, so I won't...you just have to go and see it for yourself...literally as you can't take pictures in the Sistine Chapel!! =) Worth a trip to Rome if you're wondering. This is also the room, depicted in movies, where the Cardinals meet to elect the new Pope when a Pope dies, known as the Conclave. We were shown the window where they release the smoke when a new Pope is chosen. They also still use the Chapel for services, and there are doors (obviously closed off) that lead to the Pope's private apartments.






Our guide said this bronze door is only opened every twenty years or so, at which time you can walk through it and be absolved of all of your sins...again, worth a trip back to Rome I think!

St Peter's Basilica from the outside...

A close up of the Balcony where the Pope comes out on holidays...he also does weekly services.

Unfortunately, they were closing St. Peter's Basilica unexpectedly, for a private service, so we did not get to go in. However, we knew we'd back in the area the next day as our "Angels and Demons" tour would be ending near by. So we mailed our postcards from the Vatican Post office (remember the Vatican is it's own country, so we thought it'd be fun to mail a postcard from the sixth
country on our journey!) and left Vatican City.

On our walk home to the hotel, we happened upon the Spanish Steps again, and this spectacular view of the sunset and St. Peter's Basilica in the background with a sliver of the moon overhead...imagine Italian music playing in the backround, the balcony you can see on the right is a cafe overlooking the Spanish steps where people are enjoying Italian cuisine...Priceless!

Rome Colosseum, Forum, Palatine Hill, Ides of March, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Trastevere...All in one day!

Wednesday morning we took the subway to the Colosseum. We've been told why the subway system in Rome is so bad (only two lines) ... Because every time they dig to build a new tunnel, they find some ancient ruins and have to turn it into an archeological dig! One of our guides described Rome as a lasagna. Over the centuries, people have built layer on top of layer as time and the elements cover up the layer before. In fact, many of the centuries old ruins that have been discovered you have to walk down stairs to as the "old" street level is well below the "current" street level.

I enjoyed seeing the Colosseum and learning more about it's gory past. Our guides helped us discover the truth and fiction in movies like Ben Hur and Gladiator, and told us about why the colosseum was built (to entertain the people, propaganda by the Emperor) and what it was used for (gladiator fights, mock sea battles , Execution). I read that over 500,000 people and over 1,000,000 animals died there. It is one of the Most Recognizable Landmarks of Rome, so it was appropriate to start our visit to Rome with a stop here.

Next we moved on to Palatine Hill (one of the Seven Hills of Rome, a place of legend of the origins of Rome) and the Roman Forum (the ruins of the original city center). Now, pictures of ruins do not translate well I'd imagine, but walking on the same roads that the Roman Army processed down after their victories Five Centuries Before Christ (on the original stones), well, it's pretty neat. And standing in and next to buildings over 2000 years old, well, you just have to be there to get a sense for it.

As it was right after the Ides of March, it was interesting to see the temple for Caesar that was erected where his body was cremated (I think), and flowers that people had left there on the 15th. Aparently activities honoring Caesar still go on to this day, as our tour guide was telling us she belongs to a society that held an event that night that she attended.

After our tour was done, we got some lunch (these consist of 2-4 courses unless you do street food) then went to see the Trevi Fountain where you'll see a picture of Courtney thowing in her 3 coins (To ensure that one day she'll return). We had to be careful, since coins in Europe could be one or two euros as well as change.

We shopped around the Trevi Fountain, then walked to the Spanish Steps, Which were packed with people just sitting and enjoying the view and the rest. After many miles of walking, we also enjoyed a rest back at the hotel before going out again to enjoy St. Patrick's day.

In the evening, we went to the Trastevere area of Rome (pronounced Trast-TA-ver-e) with the emphasis on the second syllable ... this was hard for us to get). This is supposed to be the where the locals hang out, but we were a little too tired to explore the dark streets, so we stuck to a couple of major roads and visited two restaurants, neither of which were celebrating St. Patrick's Day, or serving Guinness! Oh well, we wore our green and wished each other a Happy St. Patrick's Day =)

Lucerne, Switzerland and Mt. Rigi

First couple of pictures: view of our hotel (National) from lake and promenade around lake shore.

First full day in Lucerne, Switzerland: Mt. Riji! To the top, via boat, cog-wheel train (steep incline) and foot (the last 170 meters). The views from the top were of a cloud, we literally couldn't see 10 feet in front of us, but from the lake and from the train going up, and the arial car coming down...spectacular.

We tried our hand at tobogganing (sledding) and decided walking was more our speed when going down a mountain! I had to ditch it into a snowbank because I was going to fast and couldn't slow down. I can't imagine doing that on skis! I kind of thought there'd be a nice fluffy hill that you'd sled down, then drag your sled back up and repeat several times, but no, the tobbagan run was actually down the mountain, with twists and turns and a very steep incline...no thanks! My travel health insurance doesn't cover hazardous sports!

After Mt. Rigi we went and saw the famous Chapel Bridge, then out for some fondue to warm us up after our snow day. Yum!

Versilles by Bicycle Thursday

Thursday: Today we had a bike tour of Versailles planned. Now mind you, its much colder than we expected when we planned this trip and booked this tour. But despite the -1 degree Celcius
temperature (I think that's in the twenties) in the morning, we showed up for the tour. I was wearing as many layers as I could find in my suitcase.

Everyone else showed up as well, so we weren't the only crazy American (and Canadian) tourists. We rode through the streets of Paris for about ten minutes (carefully) and then boarded a train to Versailles. Once there, we went to a market to pick up bread, wine, cheese, fruit, and crepes for a picnic lunch.

We then rode around some of the 2000 acres of Chateau de Versailles (used to be 4000). We settled on the bank of the canal (formed in the shape of a cross, see one of my pics that looks like its looking out a bedroom window--that's the king's bedroom view) and ate our picnic lunch and drank our wine. I think our group was about 15-20, it was nice to talk to other Americans/Canadians and tourists like ourselves.

Then we got to go into the Palace. The pictures won't do it justice, just imagine every square inch of a huge palace decorated with the most expensive materials and huge famous paintings everywhere. We saw the famous hall of mirrors and King Louis (the XIV, XV and XVI) rooms, and Marie Antoinette's room. And the Gardens! I regret that it is still winter, but I could close my eyes and imagine the gardens in bloom!! All the more reason to come back to Paris...