Ciao! Rome, Italy Day 4
Our first destination of Day 4 was Vatican City. We took a metro to the closest station and had a breakfast at a cafe between the station and Vatican City. I don't remember the name of the cafe, but my pastry cream filled bun was nice. J had hot breakfast including scrambled eggs and cured meat, along with a croissant and a couple of toasts. I think he had a glass of orange juice and cappuccino. He must have been charged very well.
After the breakfast, we walked to St Peter's Basilica. After about 10 min walk, we arrived at St. Peter's Square, a huge plaza in front of the basilica, built by Bernini between 1657 and 1667. Enclosed by 284 columns, four rows deep, the elliptical space looked glorious in the morning sunlight.
A tall Christmas tree was just being set up and decorated at the center of the square, right next to the Vatican Obelisk. The ancient obelisk dates from 30 BC in Alexandria and was brought to Rome brought to Rome by the Emperor Caligula in 37 AC. This was the fifth obelisk we found in Rome.
There were two fountains in the square. They looked like twins, but one was built by Carlo Maderno, author of the facade of the basilica while the other was built by Bernini. The photos below show one by Mederno.
It was time to enter St Peter's Basilica. The statues of Jesus and his apostles lined up on the facade while the bigger statues of St Peter and St Paul stood in front of the church.
A Swiss guard was standing like a statue, too.
The interior of the Renaissance style basilica was majestic. Would we need to see any other Catholic church after we saw this?
St. Peter's Baldacchino, a large Roman Baroque style bronze sculpted canopy over the High Altar was also built by Bernini. The ancient tomb of St. Peter lies below the altar. The dome over the canopy was Michelangelo's work. Inspired by the Pantheon, he designed it with enough supporting elements to bear the huge dome.
The Throne of Saint Peter was behind the High Altar. The bronze chair was designed by Bernini, too.
We climbed up to the dome, or Cupola. There were two ways to do so: 1) Climb all the way by foot (551 steps) or 2) Take the elevator and then climb the rest on foot (320 steps). We chose the latter to save our energy for the day.
The elevator and some steps of staircase took us to the interior balcony which was the base of the dome. That was the spot we could see the details of the mosaics inside of the dome as well as the bird-view of the floor that we just walked around.
Climbing up the spiral staircase from there to the top of the dome was actually pretty long and made me out of breath and dizzy. I forgot to bring a bottle of water just that day! However, the great views from there were worthwhile.
The way down was much easy. We used the staircase all the way to the bottom without taking the elevator. We visited the church again to make sure we saw everything, and headed to Vatican Museums. The decoration work on the Christmas tree at the square made a good progress by then.
Vatican Museums conserve the immense collections of art gathered by the popes from the 17th century onwards. The museums were huge, but packed with too many visitors! It was pretty difficult to enjoy looking at the extraordinary legacy of culture, history and beauty for centuries.
Some parts of the museums, including Museo Chiaramonti were relatively less people somehow.
In order to avoid seeing people, I was checking at the arts on the floors and on the ceilings.
The Gallery of geographic maps was crowded but interesting to observe. There were 40 maps of the Italian regions in the 16th century, created by Ignazio Danti, a mathematician, astronomer, Catholic bishop and cosmographer. The maps were painted as frescoes directly onto the wall panels. commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII who wanted to see Italy without traveling. Made between 1580-1583, of course without aerial photography or Google, those maps are said over 80 percent accurate to this day.
The ceiling of the long hall was also impressive. The frescos on the ceiling tells the story of important historical events from each region of Italy although I didn't have time or space to stop and look up the details without causing a problem in the big flow of the visitors.
The four rooms known as the Stanze of Raphael would be probably on every visitor's must-see list. Raphael started working on those massive Renaissance frescos in 1508. He passed away in 1520 before he finished the last room "the Room of the Constantine." The room was completed in 1524, mainly painted by his pupils.
While the Raphael's rooms were packed with visitors, the Borgia Apartments, decorated with the late 15th century frescos, were almost empty and pretty quiet. By the way, the Sistine Chapel, known as the highlight of the Vatican Museums, was ridiculously crowded. There were so many visitors standing or sitting down and several security guards trying to manage the chaos. J didn't want to stay in the space more than three seconds. We quickly got out of the church and didn't pay attention to the famous Michelangelo's masterpiece.
We left the Vatican museums and walked around near the Vatican City for a while, stopped by at a local grocery store called Castroni and bought a bottle of Italian olive oil and a bar of Italian chocolate. We picked up a taxi. Our destination was Giggetto, a restaurant for lunch!
Giggetto is located just on the left of the ruins of Porticus of Octavia in the Ghetto. It was another restaurant that my friend recommended us to try for traditional Roman cuisine.
Our starters were croquettes and fried zucchini blossoms. The croquettes might be better than those we had a day before. Fried zucchini blossoms were simple and tasty, too.
I had fettuccine with mushrooms. The pasta was nice and chewy. Mushroom sauce was pretty simple.
J had cannelloni. It looked very good. I believe he enjoyed it.
For a dessert, we shared a slice of a cake that seemed very popular among the customers. I have seen some people ordering the particular dessert, but hadn't know what it was until it came to our table. It was a ricotta cheese cake. Cherry jam/compote was sandwiched between the ricotta layer and the bottom crust. It was delicious! Later of the day, I learned it was Crostata ricotta e visciole, or ricotta and sour cherry tart, a classic Roman Jewish cuisine that dates back to the 18th century.
After the wonderful lunch (thank you again, my friend!), we took a long walk to Terme di Caracalla, the finest example of great Roman baths. However, sadly the place was just closed only two minutes before we arrived there. Well, we should save some places to see for next time, right? We had a long day anyway. On the way to our Airbnb, we found a large church. I thought it was the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, one of the four Papal churches of Rome and the oldest church building in the city, originally founded in 313 under the Emperor Constantine while what we can see today is the result from major renovations in the 17th and 18th centuries. We tried to enter the basilica but couldn't find the entrance. We walked into the big orange building and the guards stopped us because it was a government office. Then we walked back a bit and entered a building that looked like a church, but it was so small and couldn't be the basilica...
Later I found out that the right building in the photo above was behind the basilica. The orange building was Lateranense Palace. It served as the residence of popes for about a millennium starting from the 4th century, and today houses the Vatican Historical Museum and the office of the Vicariate of Rome. The small church we visited by mistake was Battistero Lateranense di San Giovanni in Fonte, an ancient domed octagonal Baptistery, built in the 4th century by Constantine, together with the basilica, on a 1st century villa and a 2nd century thermal building. We needed to go around much longer far away to find the entrance of the basilica. Perhaps, next time. At least we found an obelisk! It was Lateran Obelisk, the largest obelisk ever brought to Rome. It originally stood at the temple of Amun-Ra, by Pharaohs Thutmose III and IV, who reigned between 1479 and 1391 BC. The obelisk could be the oldest thing in Rome. In addition to the Vatican Obelisk, this was the second obelisk we saw today and the sixth on the trip so far.
We walked a lot as usual. Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore was a landmark that told me our Airbnb was nearby.
To be continued...
