Arrivederci, Rome

On Wednesday we toured the Ancient Rome sites. On Thursday we toured the Christian ones.

After eating a quick breakfast of yogurt, boiled eggs, cheese, and salami, we left for the Catacombs. With me being claustrophobic, I was unsure whether I would be able to actually go in them, but thankfully the Christians made the rooms wide and tall and not very deep. So I survived to the end. I'm very glad I did, too, because it was very interesting. Also, I wouldn't even have been able to see pictures because you are not allowed to take any down there.

After our tour, we walked quickly over to the bus stop and waited and waited and waited for it to come. When we had almost despaired of it ever arriving, it pulled in and we rode it back to the metro and the metro on to the Vatican.

The famous statue of Laocoon from the Trojan War

One of the many painted ceilings in the museum.

A close up of one of he many mosaics we saw.

My siblings with Anubis

Since the Vatican museum is so big we had to prioritize and just pick a few rooms to look through. We trudged through the Ancient Civilizations displays and then down the endless hallway to the Sistine chapel. You are not allowed to take pictures in there, but imagine a big church with every bit of wall and ceiling covered in pictures. On the ceiling is the story of creation up through Noah, surrounded by the prophets. On the wall behind the altar is the Last Judgement, which, if you've ever been to my church, is probably at least the size of the wall behind our altar, if not bigger. It was just amazing.

A rug from the museum depicting the supper at Emmaus

From the hall of maps, a map of Ancient Italy

Afterwards we went to St. Peter's Basilica. Words cannot describe just how big it is. It is as long as two football fields and the canopy above the altar is as high as a seven story building and that's not even at the ceiling. But because of the way it is built, it doesn't seem so big. I'll post pictures we took later, because they're on the other iPad so I can't get to them right now. :).

Then we went to the small St. John's Lateran church, where the holy steps are. Constantine's mother brought the steps which Jesus walked up to Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem back to Rome when Constantine became the first Christian emperor. It is tradition to climb them in your knees, saying a litany of prayers on each one. While we were there, the priest showed us around the church and we got to see the Most Holy of Holies, which is the chapel used by all the medieval popes. It is called the Holy of Holies because it used to hold the holiest of the church's relics; including the skulls of St. Peter and St. Paul.

But believe it or not, we still weren't done after that. We went back to the Spanish steps and walked by the stores there, and then we went back to the Colosseum and took a few pictures of it lit up at night. And you can believe that after all that our feet were basically falling off from pain. But it was worth it, because it was the last day we were able to spend in Rome.

Hannah