Air, Landier, and Sea

A new day, a new guide, same Bryce and Katie.

We started out with the early morning tour of the Vatican, so we set out at 7:30 am to avoid the crowds and the heat.

Our Vatican guide was absolutely amazing! She was not only extremely knowledgeable, but she seemed to have only one personality.

Here are some things we learned on our Vatican Tour:

• There’s a red circle on the floor in St. Peter’s Basilica where all the kings appointed by the papacy, including Charlemagne, were crowned. (Fun fact: Katie is a descendent of Charlemagne)
• Bryce learned that the gift shops sell Holy Water and that Holy Water isn’t for drinking (just kidding, he knew the latter).
• There are no frescos in St. Peter’s Basilica, all the wall artwork is mosaic.
• In the 1970’s someone took a hammer to Michelangelo’s La Pieta and broke the Holy Mother’s nose and arm. Luckily, all the pieces were restored and now La Pieta sits behind bullet-proof glass.
• While they may look like floor rugs, tapestries were intended to hang on the walls to help provide insulation in the winter.

• The highly detailed sarcophaguses were actually mass produced, and when someone purchased one, their face was just added to the pre-sculpted figures.

• Michelangelo selected all of his marble himself. There was no way of knowing what markings would be underneath once he started chiseling, so when selecting the marble for La Pieta he didn’t trust anyone but himself to pick a piece that would allow for perfection of Mary and Jesus. He sculpted La Pieta out of one block of marble

The Vatican was truly a bucket list item for me and an experience I will never forget.

Seeing the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica were moments that truly took my breath away. It was a task for me to stare up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for more than a few minutes before my neck hurt, so it’s incredible to imagine Michelangelo painting those frescos over the course of four years.

As a Catholic, this trip was incredibly special to me, and I wore my grandma Audrey’s watch, as she was such a pillar in my faith.

After our amazing Vatican tour, we went back to the hotel, had some lunch, and took a much-needed 3 hour nap, as I definitely have not adjusted to the time difference yet.

We then wen to the Borghese Gardens and Museum, where much of the Baroque artist, Bernini‘s work is displayed.

Frederico, our tour guide, is hands-down our favorite so far. He knew so much after the extensive collection that the Borghese family accumulated (some of which through literally stealing it) over 400 years ago.

Here’s what we learned at the Borghese Museum:

• Bernini worked for multiple popes throughout his career. He was fined and removed from a project by Pope Innocent X because the Pope believed the towers that Bernini helped construct for St. Peter’s Basilica were falling down because of Bernini.
• After this devastating experience, he created a piece for himself (which he never finished), called Truth Unveiled by Time which represented how time would reveal the truth and exonerate him (which did occur). In the finished design, Father Time was meant to be revealing the naked truth, represented by the woman.

• Scipione Borghese was a rather ruthless art hoarder. He not only stole art from a church, but he absolved Caravaggio of murder in exchange for two paintings.
• The Baroque style was all about imperfection, whereas the Renaissance style of Michelangelo was about perfection.
• Bernini’s sculptures are actually not intended to sit pedestals in the middle of a room, but to be at eye-level amongst the people because they’re intended to not only entertain, but involve the audience. They’re not static statutes, but sculptures of people with movement and emotion, and look as if they’re caught in the middle of a moment/an act.

We also learned that the Pantheon closes at 7, not 7:30.

So instead of visiting it, we enjoyed a great cup of coffee close by.

We then headed to dinner at The Grotte del Teatro di Pompey, which is a restaurant located where Julius Caesar was assassinated.

Unfortunately, the restaurant also met its demise at that location and is no longer in business.

Since we were in the mood to eat where someone was murdered, we opted for the second closest restaurant to Caesar’s assassination site- it all worked out! (Well, at least for us)