Bella Roma 3

Day 3:

Our last day in Rome we went to the Pantheon and Vatican City.

The Pantheon has been on my "list of things to see before I'm dead" since I was a kid and studied Italy in geography, and this desire was renewed a couple of years ago when I read all of the Dan Brown novels. It is simply incredible to stand in this unique structure and experience the play of light from the oculus, the only source of light in the building, on all of the surfaces in the enormous room. Though everything about the building is impressive, from it's massive marble columns to its gorgeous sculptures, I found the walls themselves to be most interesting, massive slabs of multi-hued marble breathtakingly arranged as art in and of itself. Even after years of waiting to see it, the Pantheon did not disappoint.

And it triumphantly gets a 10 on the coolometer.

A completely awe-inspiring experience no matter your religion, the Vatican is breathtaking and worth the trip. Our children enjoyed being able to "visit different countries" by walking back and forth across the boundary line, and the actual tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica was just an added bonus.

Though we don't usually take guided tours, we were a little concerned about timing and not missing our evening flight, so we took a tour with a tour guide from Seattle, the bonus being that we got to skip the lines (worth it just for that) for both the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel and also heard some incredible information. The tour took about 2 1/2 hours, but it flew by in a wave of unbelievable architecture and artwork it would take a lifetime to describe. Suffice it to say that we spent the entire time with our mouths gaping open, muttering breathy oohs and aahs alongside every other tourist in Rome and loving every minute of it. One of the interesting things the guide told us is that there are so many pieces of art in the museum that if you were to spend only 45 seconds looking at each piece, even without stopping for anything trivial like eating or sleeping, it would take over 12 years to see everything. Pretty incredible. I'd love to go back just to get lost in the museum and have to have a guard help me find my way out at the end of the day.

Coolometer rating for the Vatican is definitely a 10.

Also filled with incredible artwork, St. Peter's Basilica was palatial and extremely impressive. The apostle Peter's body is supposed to be entombed beneath the alter. We enjoyed seeing the massive 98-foot tall baldachin (big canopy thingy in the middle of the picture) held by its four immense pillars (designed by Bernini in the 1600s). When the bronze for the baldachin ran out, it was completed with bronze from the Pantheon. Even without the ornate carving, it would be impressive due to sheer size, and it is the spectacular visual centerpiece of the building (complete with a carving of a dove with a seven-foot wingspan). Our children were both morbidly impressed or completely bothered by the four wax-preserved popes displayed in their glass coffins, depending on which of the kids you talked to. Their favorite part of the basilica was the statue of Peter that is supposed to give you good luck if you rub the right foot with your right hand--and, yes, we all rubbed it. In fact, so many people have rubbed it that the toes are worn off--can you say "hand sanitizer..."

On the coolometer, St. Peter's gets a 9 (simply because we saw the more-impressive Vatican Museum first).

The best part of the day was our time in the Sistine Chapel. You're not allowed to take pictures in the chapel, but standing in awe is a given. This room is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and it was even more impressive after hearing from our guide how difficult frescoes are to create. (She also told us that two of Michaelangelo's peers who REALLY didn't like him basically set him up for failure by suggesting to the Pope that Michaelangelo do the art in the Sistine Chapel, knowing that he was a sculptor and not a painter and had never done a fresco in his life and completely expecting him to fail. Guess they were wrong...) While in the chapel, you're so intent on taking in the palette of colors and images that time almost seems to stand still. Even Eryn simply stood and stared, only commenting on certain aspects of the paintings after already being in the room several minutes. After hearing about them from our guide, actually seeing Michaelangelo's sad self-portrayal on the front wall and the interestingly-scandalous images/ideas he subtly added to the paintings was VERY intriguing. The best part about the whole chapel is that even though painting wasn't his passion, Michaelangelo achieved an incredible amount of depth and realism in the frescoes--enough so that our children stood asking how in the world he did it. AWESOME!

Coolometer rating? 10, 10, 10!

Other memorable parts of Vatican City: First, the Pope is protected by his own honor guard--real Swiss soldiers who wear the most interesting, haven't-changed-for-hundreds- of-years uniforms on the planet. All I can say is that simply putting one on is an incredible show of courage. Second, the obelisk in the middle of St. Peter's square is great for the gee-whiz list. Transported it from Egypt to Rome in 37 AD, it's the only obelisk still in Rome. Being the only one of anything automatically makes you interesting. Third, the square itself is beautiful, with serene fountains and marble-topped buildings rimming the massive courtyard. And, fourth, meat and cheese thrown between two slices of bread as you hurry to catch the bus taste fantastic when it's three p.m. and you haven't eaten since breakfast.

So, that's it. The anticlimax was a bus ride back to the hotel, a second white-knuckle cab ride, and a long trip home. Everyone had a fantastic Roman adventure, and we all give the overall trip a resounding 10. Needless to say, we'd recommend this one to everyone--it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that truly is worth doing. Amazing.

More helpful hints/interesting anecdotes:
1. If you hire a cabbie to take you to your hotel, he may be willing to pick you back up on your day of departure for a reduced rate. It's very common for the cab companies to make deals like this; and if you mentally average the two trips, it makes the first one a little more bearable.
2. Never, ever, ever go into a restaurant in Italy and inform the already-attitudinally-challenged person who seats you that you would only like dessert. If you're lucky enough to get a waiter as charming as ours, he will snippily pack up your serious-customer menu with the already-excruciating prices and bring you a dessert-only menu that is more than double the price for the same items. If you've had a very long day and your children are giving you the puss-in-boots look from the Shrek movies, you foolishly stay and order only half the amount you would have ordered off the regular menu, not really satisfying anyone. If you're lucky, your server will even stand there and glare disapprovingly at you until you humor him by leaving the premises.
3. In Europe, "milk shake" does not mean "a thick, creamy ice-cream dessert made from large quantities of ice cream mixed with just enough milk to make a smooth and dreamy glass of goodness," it means "a thin, not so creamy, child-disappointing, almost-dessert made from tons of milk and a trace of ice cream." If you want a milkshake, you should probably just make your own or wait until you get back to the states, but if you order one in a restaurant, you're going to basically get weakly flavored milk--quite painful off the "dessert only" menu, by the way.
4. If you ask for water at a restaurant, make sure that you specify "tap water." If not, even if you tell the waiter you want "still water" (non-carbonated), you will get extremely expensive bottled water. If that happens and you realize your mistake, be very careful not to let the waiter open subsequent bottles of the investment-priced water and refill glasses as they empty. If this happens, you will get to visit a local coronary unit upon receiving your bill.
5. All Roman statues used to have glass eyes, which have (thankfully) fallen out and been lost over the centuries; some of them still do. Just don't look straight at them, and you'll be fine.
6. If no one else is on the grass in a huge courtyard even though it's filled with people, you probably better look for the Italian equivalent of a "keep off the grass" sign before you go tromping across the grass without thinking to take the perfect picture. The Vatican guards can be very excitable.
7. Have lots of Nutella (but if you're going to eat it on anything but bread, don't let the Europeans see you doing it)!