24 Wednesday

Bill & Theresa in St. Peter's Square

This morning we headed straight to the Vatican (well, after breakfast, of course) for our Papal audience in St. Peter’s Square.  For Theresa and I, this wasn’t our first view of Pope Benedict XVI, as we attended Easter Mass in the square in 2007, and I went to the audience the following Wednesday, also.  But, fortunately, the crowds were much smaller (merely thousands, rather than tens of thousands), and the weather was so much nicer (much cooler).  We arrived about 8:15 (for the 10:30 audience), and got pretty decent seats.  But about 10-10:15, the seats nearer the main aisle were unblocked, and we scrambled across to them.  We were about 3-5 seats from the center aisle, so had close views when the Pope passed by on his Pope-mobile.  People were singing and chanting in a variety of languages in every direction.  It seemed like a pep rally, all the more so as some were waving their flags (Mexico, Germany, Austria, Poland, and several we could not identify).   We (and many others) were scolded by the Swiss Guards for standing on the chairs. 

 

Pope Benedict emerged from the far left, and rode through the aisles passing near as many people as possible before coming up the main aisle next to us.  We had seen him about 5 ½ years ago, but were a little surprised at how much he seemed to have aged.  They named the large groups (including ours), to which we gave a cheer. 

He delivered most of the speech in Italian, but there were separate parts in English, Spanish, German, and perhaps others.  At the end, the Cardinals and Bishops in attendance lined up to greet the Holy Father.  And we just sort of began filtering out.

Bishops lined up to greet Pope Benedict XVI

We were on our own for lunch, so Mike and Mary Anne and we looked for a place to have lunch together.  We found a little spot not too far, and grabbed a table.  Then realized, we had a great view of the dome of St. Peter’s right in front of us.  Since beer is about the same price as soda, I had a nice big Peroni!

Panorama of one room in Vatican Museum

After lunch we went (as a group) to the Vatican Museum.  One could easily spend days in the Vatican Museum without seeing or having time to appreciate all of it, but we were on a tight schedule.  Our guide took us on a glossy overview tour of it, which frankly was about like trying to War and Peace in 20 minutes—you can pick a couple of chapters, and scan through them, but you really aren’t reading the book! 

We spent about 90 minutes in the museum.  Theresa and I spent about 6-7 hours there in 2007, so we did not feel like we missed out, but if it was our only trip there, I suspect we would have been very disappointed.  Regardless, if you have never been there, imagine a collection of the finest art over 4000 years, from the Egyptians, the early Greeks, through the Romans, the middle ages and Renaissance, to modern day, all presented in a stunning and gorgeous palace, which itself is a dramatic work of art.  I could fill a few blog pages with the sampling of pictures we took but I must pare down to just a fraction of that.  The tour of course included about 5 minutes in the Sistine Chapel, noted for Michelangelo’s painting of the ceiling, but more importantly, the place where the Cardinals close themselves off from the world to discern the next Pope.

As we scurried through the staggering collection, we came across a young couple sitting on a beautiful wooden bench/seat, taking a short break.  The girl was pouring over a book detailing some of the art in the museum, and the guy was snoozing with his head back.  I’m sure he was mentally reviewing the details of too many artifacts.  J

Stairs from Museum to inside Vatican

Of course, the Vatican is a City-State, and the smallest independent state in the world.  And you do need a passport to go within the city (although the museum and Basilica are accessible from Rome without passport).  At one point in the tour, we were pointed to a long stairway down, leading into the controlled part of the Vatican.  There are security cameras in many places, so presumably they watched us leaning over the rope peering down the long stairwell inside the Vatican.

We exited the museum, and basically cut in line to see St. Peter’s Basilica.  (Apparently tour groups skip the line.)  This is the largest basilica in the world, and adorned with detail and art in every inch.  A couple of dozen pictures would not be adequate, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, well, you can imagine how impossible it would be to describe it all here!

Michelangelo's La Pieta (1499)

St. Peter's Tomb (foreground) and St. Peter's Chair (background)



Better view of St. Peter's Chair
(from which the sitting Pope might make "Infallible" statements of Faith).

St. Peter's Basilica & Square, with Sistine Chapel roof to the right.

Sistine Chapel

 

San Maria Delle Grazie Alle Fornaci

We ended the day with Mass at Saint Maria Delle Grazie Alle Fornaci.  It was a long day, with lots of standing, but this would be our last Mass together as a group.  The next day, about half of the group would go on to northern Italy, and the other half was heading home.  (Sorry, I can’t tell you what happens on the “extension”…someone else will have to add those details!)

We went to dinner (same place as the last two nights), and grabbed a booth with our friends, Mike and Mary Anne.  It was really nice to have a little time with them to say goodbye.  Trying to say good bye to everyone on the way back to the hotel ended up with all of us bunched up on the sidewalk by the hotel, making probably too much noise.  Then we heard something above, and one of the ladies in our group was poking her head out the window teasing us that we were too loud!  It looked so … cliché almost!