Day 3 Part II - St Peter's

The line to get into St Peter's was pretty intimidating. We knew that we had around 6 other stops planned for the day and had already spent the better part of the morning in the Vatican museum, so we very briefly contemplated walking around the square and leaving without going in, but as soon as we saw the line start to move we dismissed that idea. It was about 95 degrees out and very humid, plus the sun was destroying us considerably waiting in line out in the open in the square, but the line actually moved at a decent clip and we were into the Basilica within an hour or so. Like I said before, this was probably my favorite site thus far. Every ceiling, floor, wall, nook, and cranny contained pieces of art that would be the showcase of most museums. It was hard to take good pictures inside because it was not exactly lit like a museum, and flash only helps so much in a space as massive as St Peter's Basilica, but here are some of our better photos:

Once again, the ceilings, columns, and walls were simply stunning.





This video is pretty scratchy, but I think it gives a decent sense of the scale and magnificence of the space:

St Peter's tomb within the building.


Cute little kids praying at one of the exhibit.

After leaving the main room we went down to the crypt below (where we were not allowed to take any pictures) to see a few more of the tombs within the building. We decided not to do the 400+ stair climb to Michelangelo's Dome, as we were getting short on time, the line was ridiculous and not moving, and Kari wasn't sure her knee would make it. We did see these guys, which made us laugh on the way out, though:


On our walk back to our hotel (about a 4 mile walk, but we had lots of stuff planned to see along the way) we stopped by the St. Angelo's Castle, where numerous Popes and Italian Royalty alike holed up to hide when they were on the run, or in trouble with visiting armies:


We then crossed the river and stopped by the Piazza Navona, where Kari at least got to dip one foot in the fountain before the polizia came by and gave a Tsk-tsk-ing:




Next we wandered over to the Pantheon and were blown away once again. Unfortunately part of the outside was undergoing a restoration and was covered with scaffolding and tarps, so we couldn't get the full splendor of the exterior, but the inside blew us away once again:


After leaving the Pantheon we walked to over to a site we were both very excited and curious about. It was the cemetery of the Capuchin Monastery, next door to the Church of the Immaculate Conception. We're a little fuzzy on the details, but from what we gather the monks of this monastery collected the bones of their fellow monks when they passed away for hundreds of years and used the bones to create human art. There were about four small rooms completely decorated with thousands and thousands of bones. The bones were arranged to create columns, walls, sculptures, and beautiful ceiling art. The exhibits were both beautiful and incredibly eerie at the same time. The displays were dark and morbid, and cameras were strictly forbidden, but snuck ours out because we knew no one would believe our descriptions of the exhibits. The picture isn't the greatest quality, as we did not want to use a flash, but here it is:
It's very blurry and hard to make out, but they had assembled full skeletons out of bone and dressed them as monks, surrounding them with shrines and walls made entirely of human bones. All of the decorations on the walls were made of human bone. Here are a couple of better quality photos from the web:

Very cool, very creepy, and incredibly beautiful in a hair-raising, spine-tingling way.


Our last stop of the day was a recommendation from Andy. It was a massive church called the Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was very beautiful, and, interestingly, had multiple exhibits honoring scientific achievements such as the pendelum and an oculus that shines a point of light on the floor, where they have a tract that displays the date of year at noon every day. Here are a few photos:


They also had a gorgeous massive organ, which we thought Tom would like to see (or maybe knows a little bit about?


Alright, we've got to run now, as we need to check out of the hotel in 20 minutes and go pick up the car. We're heading up the coast to stop at Santa Marinella on our way to Siena for the night. Wish Kari luck driving on the crazy Italian streets!

More updates coming in the following days

-Dan and Kari