Day 2 - A Better Day

Day 2 of our trip was a much better day than day 1. We were rested, it was warm, and we didn't get lost in the middle of the city a million times. We started out the day by going to Palm Sunday mass in St. Peter's Square. Talk about a cool experience. One of the things we were most excited for about going to Italy was just to soak up the Italian culture, and there was absolutely no better way to soak up their culture than by attending this mass. It was unreal. We had to wait outside the Vatican for almost an hour before they even let us in, and you'll never believe who was crowding their way to the front of the crowd - the nuns! They were just so excited to see the new pope and were elbowing and pushing anyone and everyone who was in their way of seeing their new pope. I don't think I've ever been in more of a crowd in my life. I was just pushed and shoved every which way. We were so relieved when we finally were able to be let in to the city.

Close up of the dome on St. Peter's. Michelangelo designed it. Cool huh??

YES! 

See all of those people? That's who we were waiting with. We weren't as excited as they were about getting front row seats. We actually wanted to be as far away from the crowd as possible, so we hung near the back. This plan worked out GREAT until about 30 minutes before mass started. Then, even the place where we were standing started to fill up. Dave had gone to see if he could send a postcard from the Vatican post office and by the time he came back there were already lots of people behind me. I had a front row standing spot, and he was trying to come meet up with me. He was trying to sneak past an Italian lady right behind me and when he said, "I'm so sorry, but that's my wife up there. Can I sneak up by her?" she responded, "NO!" and elbowed him in the ribs. See what I mean?? Those Italians love their new pope. She did not want him standing in the way of her view. The pope is like a rock star over there.

We got to grab some palms because there was a huge pile of them. We kind of felt like we were a part of the crowd. :)

Dave was excited about this section of people who were waving Spain flags.

Is this awesome or what??

They just loved him!

You'd really never believe it, but those nuns wanted a front row spot and wouldn't settle for anything else.

Dave and I were actually approached by someone who was in charge of the mass who asked us if we wanted to join the procession of people carrying palms. COOL right?? But they only had 1 ticket. Since we didn't have any way of communicating with each other, we were nervous about finding each other in that enormous crowd once it was over, and so we had to say no. I really, really wish they would have had 2 tickets, because how insanely awesome would that have been??

When the pope arrived in his popemobile, the crowd got really excited. They couldn't get too excited because it was mass, and it was extremely reverent when he came. But - even still - you could sense the people's excitement. It was clearly visible and almost even audible. It was neat to see how much they love and respect him already. And how cool is it that we have actually seen the pope?? I never thought that would happen.

Don't mind the people chatting next to us in Italian. I guess if you speak Italian you'll be able to understand what they say. I was clueless, but still it was fun to hear them conversing so excitedly. 

There he is! The pope! We actually got to see him! Too bad it's a view from behind, but luckily I was standing right in the spot where I could snap a photo of him between the two columns. 

The pope must have said something in Italian about raising your palm leaves, because everyone did at this moment. It was so reverent, and so cool to see the entire crowd hold up a palm in reverence. Such a cool feeling.

If you look really closely you can see the pope up there, giving some kind of blessing and letting out smoke and incense.

Here's a procession of the cardinals. It's kind of a long video, but I just loved how I could see some of them singing along to the beautiful music. It was almost like they knew it by heart. I just loved how much commitment and devotion they showed to their church. In a world that seems to be filled with more and more people who want nothing to do with religion or God, it was amazing to see all of these men, plus all of these people in the crowd who were unashamedly worshiping together. Mass was everything we had hoped it would be, and even more than that.

After the mass, we headed over to Piazza del Popolo (which was the rallying point of the political parties the night before. Luckily it was much calmer today) to the Chigi chapel for another stop on Dave's "path of illumination". 

Piazza del Popolo

If you've seen the movie, you'll know exactly what Dave is pointing to. If not, you should watch it. It's awesome.

Isn't this church awesome? It's the church of San Giovanni en Laterano. While St. Peter's Basilica was being built, this was headquarters for the pope. Cool! We didn't have time to go inside, but it was just gorgeous. Gorgeous and HUGE.

After seeing the Chigi chapel, we walked down to the church of Santa Scala. This was a church that Dave had researched, and I didn't know too much about it. Supposedly, the church holds the staircase from Pontius Pilate's palace that Jesus walked up before he was crucified. It is said that Constantine's mother brought them from Jerusalem as a gift to her son when he converted to Christianity. Because they are so sacred, worshipers are only allowed to walk up the stairs on their knees, out of respect.  Whether or not they are actually the real stairs, it was incredible to watch people ascending the steps on their knees. There was such a feeling of peace, respect  and reverence as we watched people climb the stairs. Again, it was so neat to see people so devoted to their religion.  There was a special feeling there, especially with it being so close to Easter.

Some people would stop on each step and say a little prayer before moving on to the next step.

Although I felt like I could have spent all day at the church, we needed to get moving so we could see all of the other sights that awaited us. We walked to the Italian Liberation Museum as a must-see for Dave. Since he is such a WWII buff, there was no way we were missing this sight. It was a prison-made-headquarters place where German officers would keep Italian prisoners, and today some of the rooms are left just like they were when they were discovered, and it has other artifacts and things from citizens in Italy during the war. Sounds awesome, right?? It was kind of a let down. There was absolutely nothing in English, so we couldn't tell what we were seeing at all, and it was just kind of run-down, like nobody really took care of anything. I was sad that Dave was disappointed, but of course he still liked it simply because it had SOMETHING to do with WWII. 

Some of the prison cells.

Look at that pretend excited face! :)

For lunch, we decided to grab a sandwich from a cart and have a little picnic with a nice view in the background. Yep, pretty cool picnic huh??

More on the Colosseum later. We just stopped for a view while we ate.

The Colosseum was looking a bit crowded, so we decided to do the Roman Forum first. This was incredible, but I have to admit that it wouldn't have been had it not been for an audio guide from Rick Steves (Dave will be pleased as punch that I'm writing this fact right now). There was just so much ancient rubble to see that if you didn't know what it was, it could get kinda boring pretty quickly. 

This is the place where Julius Caesar was burned. I would never have even looked at this place had it not been for our audio guide. People still come here to lay flowers on the place where he was killed. 

The arch of Septimus Severus (I just kept thinking of Severus Snape).

This is the remains of an ancient temple that had a light in it that was continually burning. The society actually had some women, called Vestal Virgins, whose entire life's calling was to keep watch on the flame and make sure that it never went out.

The arch of Constantine. This was essentially the political/legal center of the city. Lawyers would hang out here, speeches would happen here, anything that was a city issue was dealt with here. And it was massive. Seriously massive.

The arch of Titus. Right before we listened to the Rick Steves track about this arch, I asked Dave who  built all of this amazing architecture. It seemed the trend in history is to conquer a people and bring them back to do your dirty work. Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened here. The Romans conquered the Jews and brought them back to Rome to build parts of the Forum and this arch in particular to show their defeat. Talk about salt in the wounds, right??

A view of the Forum

The Colosseum. There are almost no words to describe the enormity of this place. Huge doesn't even begin to describe it. Advanced engineering doesn't even begin to describe it. You just have to see it in real life to really appreciate it. I was a little sicked out by what the Colosseum was used for, but if you can get past what it was designed for and look at the incredible architectural advances, then it's pretty amazing.

So back in the day, you wouldn't be able to see these passageways underneath the field. The whole field would have been covered like the top part of this picture shows. These little passageways were where animals and criminals were shuffled through and then they would pop up somewhere in the arena through one of the many trapdoors to face their ultimate doom. Pretty horrifying.

We learned that sometimes the Caesar would let the crowd decide if a person was to live or die by simply showing a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It's pretty disgusting that a person's LIFE could be decided by the whim of the crowd. Those Romans were pretty horrible sometimes. 

A view of the Arch of Constantine from the Colosseum.

After spending a lot of time at the Colosseum, we headed to the church of St. Peter in Chains. This church has one of my favorite Bernini sculptures, Moses, and it also has the chains that supposedly held Peter while he was being condemned. Totally cool to see.

The chains

My face is dark, but you can see the statue pretty clearly. Isn't it awesome?? I hope Moses was really that buff in real life.

After St. Peter in Chains, we headed to yet another stop on Dave's "path of illumination", at the Santa Maria della Vittoria church to see Bernini's St. Teresa in Ecstasy. I've actually read about this sculpture and I was almost as excited to see it as Dave was. Isn't Bernini awesome??

For our last stop of the night, we headed to the Victor Emmanuele monument to see a bird's eye view of Rome. The monument itself is just massive, and it's dedicated to Victor Emmanuele, kind of the George Washington of Italy. 

The monument. Huge, right??

On our way up to the monument, we stopped at Capitol Hill Square, a square designed by Michelangelo. It was beautiful, and cool to see that Michelangelo could be an architect as well as a painter and a sculptor.

Statues in front of Capitol Hill Square.

Capitol Hill Square

Stopping for a drink. Dave said this was one of the tastiest fountains he's ever had a drink from.

We took an elevator up to the top of the monument, and the view of Rome was INCREDIBLE. It was truly amazing to see Rome from that perspective. We could have sat on the top of that monument for hours, just soaking in the view. This was one of my favorite things that we did in our entire time in Rome.

The Colosseum. AWESOME!!!

Vatican City.

The Forum

Two excited people, loving what they see.

The Pantheon. I affectionately called it "The Turtle Shell".

At the end of this video, you'll notice that Dave says, "Thanks for traveling with me". That is the trademark Rick Steves comment. At the end of every one of his shows, he always says, "I'm Rick Steves, thanks for traveling with me." I almost peed my pants when Dave said it at the end of this video.

That balcony with the Italian flag is where Mussolini would deliver his speeches. It was a must-see for Dave the WWII buff. :)

As you can see from these pictures, we did a TON of stuff on day 2. I think my legs and feet were sore the entire rest of the trip because of all the walking we did, but it was totally worth it. I saw so many of the things I've wanted to see for my whole life, and being able to see it with Dave was absolutely the best thing ever. We stopped to get some gelato and a yummy treat to take back to the hotel room with us and we lounged out and ate our treats while we re-hashed everything we did that day. Day 2 was amazing.