Wearing my new Italian linen pants and sleeveless top (since my luggage is still MIA), I set out for my first full day in Rome. It had been an awful first night. I spent half of it attempting to sleep on a towel on the floor of the bathroom. Migraine combined with the fact that I am an insanely light sleeper...yeah. We breakfasted at the hotel, which had a nice selection of pastries, breads, fruit, cereal, meats and cheeses, as well as scrambled eggs (for us Americans! Italians do not eat eggs at breakfast I have read). I ordered my first coffee in Italy quite by mistake walking by the coffee counter. "Americano?" the gal asks. "Umm...yes!" I reply. A few minutes later out comes a cup of steaming hot black coffee. Yech. I like my coffee about half cream and sugar, half actual coffee. Candi looks at me, "Order it wrong?" Me: "Pretty sure I did. I wasn't sure if she was asking about coffee or my nationality!" It was coffee. No amount of sugar could rescue that first cup. Thank God for adrenaline when there's only been about 4 hours of sleep! The next few days I would order a cafe latte or cappuccino and be good to go.
I was not to be deterred though. The day would begin with a tour titled Angels and Demons where we would visit all the churches on the path of enlightenment (as well as where 4 cardinals were murdered) in Dan Brown's novel. Places visited include:
- St Maria del Popolo Church
- St Peter's Square
- St Maria della Vittoria Church and Ecstasy of St. Teresa Sculpture by Bernini
- Piazza Navona
- Castel Sant'Angelo
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| St. Peter's Square |
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| The Ecstasy of St. Teresa |
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| Inside Vatican Museum |
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| In the courtyards at the Vatican Museums |
That tour was amazing! I have been home now for a week as I write, and I still think it was one of the best that we went on! The tour guide, Massimo, was a fantastic story-teller, and he re-told the story as we traveled to each site, being sure to point out fact and places where the author had taken poetic license (like the fact that Galileo could not actually have been an Illuminati because they were not around until after his death). It also helped that Massimo was pretty nice to look at.
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| Close-up of the face of St. Teresa |
And the fact that he told us all about the controversy surrounding the sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini called The Ecstasy of St. Teresa! The controversy is that the sculpture is to depict St. Teresa's night-time visions of angels visiting her and alighting her with passion...the description in her book is quite sensual, and the statue is as well (including the fact that there are other sculptures on either side portraying people "viewing" her ecstasy), hence the Catholic church not knowing where they should even place this work of art.
Excerpt from My Life by Teresa of Avila:
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.
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| Picture from the Internet of God touching Adam |
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| St. Peter's Basilica |
That afternoon we had another big tour to Vatican City which would include the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, as well as St. Peter's Basilica. There are really no words that can do proper justice to the place. The Sistine Chapel does not allow photography (I was a bit late catching up to the group after a restroom break, and I got this yelled at me by one of the guards!), but the ceiling is breathtaking. I marveled at the section of painting depicting God touching Adam and giving him life. St. Peter's Basilica though, was the icing on the cake. I am not Catholic myself, though this trip has almost convinced me otherwise. When we entered the basilica, there was a mass going on in the inner most part. It was being held in Latin, and the sheer sound of the ancient language while being amidst the opulence of the basilica was enough to give me goosebumps.
Wearing my new Italian linen pants and sleeveless top (since my luggage is still MIA), I set out for my first full day in Rome. It had been an awful first night. I spent half of it attempting to sleep on a towel on the floor of the bathroom. Migraine combined with the fact that I am an insanely light sleeper...yeah. We breakfasted at the hotel, which had a nice selection of pastries, breads, fruit, cereal, meats and cheeses, as well as scrambled eggs (for us Americans! Italians do not eat eggs at breakfast I have read). I ordered my first coffee in Italy quite by mistake walking by the coffee counter. "Americano?" the gal asks. "Umm...yes!" I reply. A few minutes later out comes a cup of steaming hot black coffee. Yech. I like my coffee about half cream and sugar, half actual coffee. Candi looks at me, "Order it wrong?" Me: "Pretty sure I did. I wasn't sure if she was asking about coffee or my nationality!" It was coffee. No amount of sugar could rescue that first cup. Thank God for adrenaline when there's only been about 4 hours of sleep! The next few days I would order a cafe latte or cappuccino and be good to go.
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