SPQR Fellowship

Today, our group witnessed another popular (under statement) site of Italy – the Vatican City. We purchased tickets to skip the line for the Vatican Museum. While waiting for our escort we stood near the plaza of St. Peter’s Basilica. Unbeknown to us, the pope was conducting a ceremony this morning for a celebratory mass, so we got to glimpse him on the ‘mega-tron.’ The Vatican Museum is astounding in content, size, popularity… There were so many people… The mass of humanity in the same spaces as me at the same time was slightly unnerving – slightly distracting. I had seen the Vatican Museum during our last visit. I didn’t remember all of the exhibits, but thinking back I suppose we probably did see everything and I just didn’t remember. There is so much to take in, 4 miles I think I read? I could be wrong. A lot of art to be certain.

Dave plans to write about the Vatican Museum more, so I will let him take on the rest of that topic. We had wanted to go into the Basilica, but by the time we left the museum the line went around the entire plaza probably about 4 people deep all the way around. We decided that the doors would close way before we’d ever have a chance to get to them, so instead Dave and I decided to visit Palazzo Spada which contains the forced perspective designed by Borromini. It took us a little time to find it because it isn’t labeled on the map nor are all of the roads to get to it. I am not so sure that they get too many visitors there, but they seemed excited by our excitement to see the Borromini work. A young girl brought us out to the garden – gave us a history of the work in about 5 minutes – forbid us to walk through the space ourself – but allowed us to take pictures of her walking through it. If you don’t understand what I’m describing, see the pictures below. We then sat and did a drawing of it while hearing seagull noises – strange ones. Soon after, it began raining so we headed back to our hostel to send out this blog. The rain has since stopped so I am going to stop writing and we are going to go see some of Rome at night.  Pictures from today and a post on the Vatican Museum visit to follow.

Jenna

We have returned from our night walk. It was slightly rushed due to curfew time to meet up with the others… only one set of keys for the room we’re living in. We saw the Trevi though which was hopping, the Pantheon which was haunting, and the Piazza Navona which was slightly less populated that I had thought it would be. It was a good walk. Oh, one more thing from the day. On the way home the first time, we walked down a street filled with bicycles. It was Critical Mass Roma that we witnessed – quite a sight to see!