Yesterday, we actually saw the sunshine, but today, the clouds are low and gray.
To avoid spending the bulk of the morning waiting to get inside the Vatican Museum, we join the (already long) line at 8:00 a.m. By the time the doors open at 8:45, it has been raining for almost half an hour. We’re inside by nine o’clock: soaked, glistening with sleet, but happy to be here all the same.
The Museum, of course, is stunning. Back in Siem Reap, every square inch of every wall of Angkor Wat was covered with carvings; here in Rome, every square inch of every wall in the Vatican is plastered with art. Our guide, Paulo, does an admirable job of pointing out the “must sees” in every gallery, all while steering us closer and closer to the climax of the visit: the Sistine Chapel.
In the Chapel, the images on the famous ceiling are smaller and more vivid than I expected. In my mind’s eye, the creation of Adam had dominated the room; in fact, this scene is just the tiny centerpiece of a bewildering tapestry of images. Focusing on any one section is almost impossible; instead, it’s much easier to be overwhelmed by the cascade of saints, Old Testament heroes, moments from the life of Moses, moments from the life of Christ, and the jaw-dropping chaos of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment.
Following pretty good lasagna in a basement cafeteria, we move on to St. Peter’s Basilica, where we stroll past the ornate tombs of the Popes of yesteryear. Here, the immense bronze altar, with its serpentine columns and tented roof, fascinates me. The metal, taken from the ceiling of the Pantheon, once covered a pagan temple; the Catholic Christians have melted it down and recast it in the style meant to recall Solomon’s temple and the Holy of Holies.
In a way, the altar is symbolic of all of Rome — a city where the past and present are irrevocably interwoven. Pagan temples become churches and apartment homes and stock exchanges. Columns erected before Christ are mashed into the facades of buildings built in the Middle Ages, with additions that date to the 1800’s, with new windows that date to the late twentieth century. Marble from the Roman Forum paves the floor of the Sistine Chapel. The four hundred year-old wing of a two thousand year-old building is referred to as the “new construction.”
As the day grows longer, the weather gets colder, wetter, and more aggressive. By the time I reach the Pantheon, I’m happy to duck under the protection of its massive dome.
Here, beneath the Eye of Heaven, I pay a great deal of attention to Joyce, who has insisted, several times, that she really, really, really wanted to see the inside of the Pantheon. Over the past few days, Joyce has repeated this mantra: “I don’t just want to walk past the Pantheon. I want to go inside. I want to take my time and look around. I want to really see the Pantheon … in fact, it’s the main reason I’ve wanted to go to Rome.”
Oddly, now that we’re here, she doesn’t seem much enthused. Eventually, Clyde explains the problem: “She’s been saying she always wanted to see the Pantheon, but she was really thinking of the Parthenon.”
In other words: we’re here, now, in Rome, primarily because Joyce has always wanted to see a building that’s actually a thousand miles away … in Greece!
Other assorted moments:
– Snagging a great piece of pizza from a vendor just minutes away from Trevi Fountain. He’s a handsome Italian boy who flirts, chops the slice in half, wraps it in wax paper, and sends us off with a wink and a smile. (I would have gone back for second helpings, but Clyde quickly steered me back to the tour group!)
– Seething at the Late People. Every tour group has them: the couple that is late to every group meeting, no matter how much the guides plead for punctuality. And these two are perhaps the strangest late people I’ve ever come across. Again and again, when they finally come dragging in, the wife — a curious, dark-haired woman with protruding teeth — seems completely oblivious to the fact that she’s late. In fact, she seems to think we’ve all assembled just to greet her. “Hello,” she says, gliding past our glares and giving all of us her best parade wave. “Hello. Oh, hello! It’s good to see you. Hello!”
– Eating the Gelatto. Okay, I admit it. I’m eating ice cream at least twice a day. But where else am I going to find flavors like milk chocolate, rose, and violet?
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