Lucky number twelve

St Peter's Basilica dome

Years ago I told R about an article I read in the New York times about a woman who wanted to visit one country for every year of her age. Ever since, R has wanted to meet that goal, too. Today, if you count Vatican City as a country, she made it!*

We started the day at St Peter's Basilica. It was overwhelmingly ornate. R enjoyed it because she really likes marble work. She spent as much time looking at the floor as up. S's favorite part was the huge bronze canopy. Actually, bronze caught her attention in other places we visited, too. It's funny how the kids are attracted to different materials regardless of how they are used. T and L were a little restless in the Basilica, so E played eye spy with them. Suddenly, T called out, "I see a naked flying baby!" There were naked flying babies everywhere!

Michaelangelo's Pieta

A little dome

Giant naked flying babies or naked flying baby giants?

After the Basilica we went through the museum on our way to the Sistine Chapel. The lines weren't as bad as we'd been led to believe, but it is hard to figure out where to go and the crowds inside were crazy. It was so crowded it was actually hard to see the art. It was more like the galleries were there to funnel the crowd toward the Chapel. Still, what we saw was pretty incredible: a room that had only marble statues of various animals, like a zoo, which S really enjoyed; beautiful mosaics including one that really interested me, which was small black on white tiles depicting all sorts of beautiful birds; and enormous basin at least eight feet across carved from one block of red marble; a gallery with colorful maps painted on every wall; and a huge statue of Hercules. The girls thought it was funny to see a Greek god in the Vatican.

The Chapel was very dark and every couple of minutes a guard would make an announcement that everyone had to be silent even though that obviously wasn't going to happen. S said she was surprised. She had thought that the picture of God creating Adam was the only painting and that it would be huge instead of there being many small scenes. R preferred the wall behind the altar to the ceiling. It was also painted by Michelangelo and shows the last judgment. It had tons of bright blue in it because Michelangelo did not have to pay for the expensive pigments himself, like he did for the ceiling. Also, the wall includes a few Easter eggs. Michelangelo painted himself as St Sebastian and one of his enemies as being tormented by devils.

The littles and I took a long walk (and got gelato) while E and the girls climbed the dome. I'm told the dome was awesome and the view was beautiful It was a tough climb, though. The stairs were okay, but slanty and tight. At one point the only thing to hold on to was a rope going through the center of a spiral staircase.

I can't even tell what is going on here with the stairs up the dome, but it looks bad.

At least if you get dizzy it's too narrow to fall over!

For dinner we went to another pizza place which I had heard was good. It was very close to the Vatican as the crow flies, but it took a long time to get there. And I had not heard that the pizza was strictly take-out. We were lucky to find a bench outside, though. I think it was L's favorite meal of the whole trip. Her pizza had sauteed onions, rocket greens, and sheep's cheese. E had potato pizza, R and I had cherry tomato, and S and T declined. R and I ordered a second slice (since L ate so much!) and they gave it to us for 28 cents. I don't know why.

We rode the metro back to the hostel. The station next to the pizza place is one of only a couple in Rome with elevators for a stroller, so that was lucky. But the train seemed incredibly slow. I wonder if it really was incredibly slow, as opposed to just kind of slow, or whether it just seemed that way after the race car style driving on the infamous bus 40?


* US, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Norway, UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Vatican City