Ah Roma! (Part 1).... Getting there, Triton's Fountain, Spanish Steps, Vatican City

Three days in Rome is not enough!  We arrived on Friday after the most amazingly chaotic driving I've ever seen. It mirrors the mess I remember when visiting the Arc de Triomphe in Paris nearly two decades ago (ha ha, aging myself a bit there!) Not only are you fighting other cars, but scooters, motorcycles, sidewalk fixtures, pedestrians and the random cat or dog.

Notice how the motorcycle is going perpendicular to the traffic?!?
Not, this was NOT at an intersection!

We did arrive at our quaint hotel, Hotel San Silvestro, where DH checked our family of five in. The animated Italian gentleman at the front desk scolded DH, "You don't bring FIVE people to Roma!"  DH said it was definitely more animated than being yelled at.  After checking in, DH asked where we should park the car to which the gentleman said, "A CAR IN ROMA?!?!?!  You don't bring a car to Roma!"  We were 2 for 2 on "don'ts"!

After parking the car, we explored the area on foot and had dinner.  Our first stop was the Fontana del Tritone (Triton Fountain) in the Piazza Barberini.  The children ran around while we waiting for our dinner reservation time to approach.

DH took pics of the kids and me at the Fontana del Tritone.
Unfortunately, I had to choose between Alex sticking his tongue out or
Jacob looking the other way.

Our hotel is at the Piazza San Silvestro - and I intentionally chose it because DH's middle name is Silvestre and I knew he'd like that. (I did earn brownie points for that one which, I believe, is why he and the kids bought me a colosseum charm for my Pandora bracelet).  It is located right by Scalinata Trinita di Monti (the Spanish Steps) in the Piazza di Spagna and Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain).  The top of the steps are fantastic at night... though every 10 feet there is a street vendor trying to sell my children cheap toys.  I swear, they must have Oriental Trading Company on speed dial.  Junk, junk, junk.  They start at 20 Euro for a laser pointer and then talk it down to 5 EU.  Want a balloon full of flour that you can make into a funny face?  Only 5 Euro each (but for you, my friend, only 2 for 2 Euro). No, no and no thanks!  Enough about them (they need to make a living too, right?!)

View from the top steps of Scalinata Trinita di Monti.
There is a lower platform before the steps continue to the street below (the people you see at the bottom of the pic). 

To the far upper right of the photo you can see the dome of Basilica S. Pietro (Saint Peter's Basilica).  It is breathtaking - and it is also the victim of the laser pointer demonstrations. :)

Day 2 starts bright and early with cappuccinos and pastries.  We hop a cab to Vatican City and talk a tour guide down to an extremely reasonable price for a tour of the Musei Vaticani e Basilica S. Pietro (Vatican Museums and Saint Peter's Basilica).  The tour guide we had is an artist and she gave wonderful history lessons, especially of Michelangelo Buonarroti.  It was well worth the few extra euros for her expertise.

Outside of Vatican City in Saint Peter's Square

Close-up

As wide of a view as my lens allowed.

Saint Peter's Square

Vatican Museums

Now here is where I will have TONS of difficulty.  We took a few hundred pictures - nearly 200 of the Vatican experience alone.  I've narrowed down to a "few" of my favorites and started getting friendly with the DELETE button... but be warned, there are still quite a few. ;)

First off, we needed to get in.  Did you know that the Swiss guard the Vatican?  You can't get in or out unless you're on the list. ;)  Or you can pay to go through the museums and end at the Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel).  We're not on the list, so through the museums we go!  We started in the gardens learning about Michelangelo then went through some of the museums.  Traveling with three kids (not to mention a double stroller) did not make it easy through the crowds and we did get separated from our tour for a bit.  But, we did receive a few perks since we had to use the lifts (elevators).  We were allowed in areas blocked off (accompanied by an officer) to get to where we needed to be.  That was pretty cool.

Beautiful stained glass in front of a window.

There are gorgeous painted and sculpted ceilings throughout - it's hard to choose which photos to share and which to save for ourselves...

 The tapestries are amazing and plentiful.  Again, hard to choose which to show on here...

The Last Supper tapestry displayed in a Vatican Museum.

Now picture taking and talking in the Sistine Chapel is STRICTLY PROHIBITED.  The guards were on top of things - anyone who took a pic or video was immediately booted and all of their photos were erased.  It is a NO JOKE policy.  We watched many people booted.  People we imagined were as slick as Rick (tho I don't think I know a "slick" Rick).  Even though you would think that in a crowd as big as this, how in God's name would they catch you or even get to you???  Well, don't mess with the Vatican officers - or God's name!  Take a pic or video and you were outta there!  So for memories, we had to settle on photographing the diagrams found in the gardens.

The ceiling.  

The hands of God between Adam and the sun follow you in the Chapel.  It was Michelangelo's great illusion depicting how God is watching over everyone everywhere.  Genius.

Originally, Michelangelo painted Il Giudisio Universale (The Last Judgement) with everyone nude.  He refused to clothe the people, even at the demand of the Pope.  After his death, they were going to destroy this work and start over.  Michelangelo's friend, a fellow artist, saved the piece of art by adding the clothing you see here:

Here's a bit of interesting history about The Last Judgement:  a Cardinal complained to the Pope about the nudity in The Last Judgement.  The Pope would not upset Michelangelo because as he was doing this, he was also working on the church free of charge (even the Pope can't argue with free genius).  So when Michelangelo got to the bottom right where hell and the devil are depicted, he used the Cardinal's face for the face of the devil and donkey ears ("because he was a dumb ass" per our guide).  Oh, and since he desperately wanted the people clothed, Michelangelo painted the snake (and we know about the snake from the Bible) with his mouth on the devil's who-who.  When the Cardinal found out and seen the work, he complained to the Pope.  The story says that the Pope asked where this horrendous thing was located on the painting... to which the Cardinal replied, "Well, in Hell, of course."  The Pope allegedly said, "Well in Hell I have no power. If it were in Heaven, that would be different!"  LOL

If you want closeup pictures of this, as well as the devil, I found a great read at a blog called maItaly. Just click here and a new window will pop up to that blog.



The next set of pictures are from inside the Church (yea! I can take pictures again!)

Here we are with the camera facing towards one side of the church.  Yeah, that's just a side of it.  It's that big.  Someone said it is the 2nd largest church in the world.  I'll have to google that sometime.

My awesome family!

Standing in here reminded me of how small we all are.

Passerbys watched as this man remained in prayer before and after we were there.

The detail is amazing.

This alter was blocked off from the public.

Outside of the church you can see hundreds of chairs placed throughout in preparation for a majorly populated mass.

So yeah, this is a long post, but it is mostly pictures so it should have been bearable!  If you made it this far, GRAZIE!  Go enjoy a cappuccino and pat yourself on the back - you deserve it! ;)  My next post will be about the things we seen after visiting Vatican City and possibly the Colosseum.  I may have to break that into two separate entries, depending on the picture count. :)  I do hope you enjoyed this post and I look forward to sharing more of the Rome experience with you soon.  Ciao!