Rome 1: The Vatican

Hi. It's seems like a long time since I've sat down to catch up on the this blog. We're now in Siena, a very pretty town, and I'm happy to say, we finally made our first contact with actual Italians outside of the tourist and transportation industry! More on that later. First, I have to catch up on our experiences in 'The Eternal City.'

Rome is at once beautiful, mysterious, confusing, and completely overwhelming. There is such a huge number of buildings, monuments, arches, museums, etc., all of which are 'must see attractions', that they almost begin to seem commonplace after a few days.

We started the visit with the Vatican Museums which contain an unparalleled collection of art, statues, artifacts, and bric a brac, collected by every Pope since Poping began. And these guys were no slouches when it came to collecting stuff, nor did they shy away from decorating their surroundings with incredible oppulence (all to better show their immense piety).

These buildings are covered from head to toe with mosaics, frescoes, paintings and statues. There is a hall of enourmous tapestries, and a hall with maps of the world frescoed around it. There are Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian and of course Roman antiquities. There is a hall of carriages including Popemobiles through the ages. After gawking through for 2 or three hours, you finally reach the Sistene Chapel (sorry no photos allowed). Sadly, by then I was so tired I really could not muster any more awe.

From there we stumbled over to Saint Peter's Basillica, and our faces were virtually frozen in expressions of 'WOW.'