Roma, ti amo!

I am going to attempt a post about Italy, and hope that Blogger does not devour it once more.

Rome (Roma) is amazing. Possibly the most amazing place I ever have been and ever will be.

The people were great, the food was great, everything was cheap, and it was even clean (but when you've been to Dublin, you think all cities are clean...).

Our hotel was a bus ride from the Vatican City. But you have to understand Roma transport. It sucks. It was the one bad thing about the entire city. Five #881 busses would pull up together and you would miss them... then it would be 30 minutes until the next bus of any kind came along. People are so frantic to get on busses... I was body-checked by a nun, RIGHT outside the Vatican walls, and quite hard! They aren't messing around! This and the fact that my shin was rammed into a pole made some words come out of my mouth. They weren't nice, and unfortunately I forgot that I was in an Italian speaking country when I used my bad Italian word. Fortuantely it wasn't loud at all, so nobody really cared. And the nun was far away. And the Metro was worse.

But once we got off the bus, we encountered this:

Piazza di St. Peter's Basilica

(The plaza outside St. Peter's Basilica)

As all good Art students who pay attention in class know, this was designed by Bernini. And if you are in my art class, you know Nigel thinks it hides Michelangelo's dome in the background there, and takes away from it. I disagree, finding the entire thing quite amazing.

Bre and I decide we should go to the top of the dome. But not before...

...gelato.

This (lemon gelato) was the first of many many many gelatos consumed on this trip.

You don't understand how very very good it is. I would go back just for that if not anything else.

And now you will see why Michelangelo is not only my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtle (the orange one), but my favorite (non-photograpy) artist.

They will see us waving from such great heights...

This is the view from the top of St. Peter's... the dome Michelangelo constructed over Bernini's Piazza. I think they go well together.

They warn you about the stairs. There is a little sign at the beginning stating you should take the lift if you have heart issues or are older, because there are 312 stairs after the lift.

Bre and I are not old and we do not have heart issues. Nor were we going to spend 2 euro to use the lift. Up the stairs.

Here is what they don't tell you. See the platform with the statues in the above picture? That is where the lift plus 312 stairs gets you. Obviously, this picture was taken far above that. I didn't even try to count. Narrow, tilted, winding staircases. It got so narrow and so windey that the last staircase all the stairs were no larger than 5 inches wide at their widest point (it is spiraled, remember) and a rope down the center of the spiral served as a handrail. But when you got to the top, that quickly dissolved (along with anything you used to call leg muscle...) - the view was amazing anywhere you looked.
Regretfully we left the top of the dome.

However, the second best part of the Basilica waited inside.

Michelangelo's Pieta. We had a paper due the day we left for Rome, and I chose to do mine on Michelangelo. I am a smart one sometimes. It gave me the opportunity to scope out some of his best works, and where to find them in Roma. I do believe this is my favorite sculpture ever.

Michelangelo's Pieta

You used to be able to get closer to it, but in the 1970's a disgruntled Hungarian went after it with a hammer. Of course a hammer is not going to do too much to marble like that, but the Vatican became quite (understandably) upset. I believe they over-reacted a bit, but can see why they would want to protect this - it is amazing. So you can now view the Pieta from a railing 3 feet away from very thick plexi-glass, which the Pieta sits about 5 feet behind. Fortunately, my daddy gave me a really nice zoom lense, so I have some good pictures. The one above is actually my digital, which has a comprable zoom, but nothing beats 35mm. And I took 4 1/2 rolls of 35mm film in Roma. :o)

Well, that is just the beginning, but I can only upload 4 pictures an entry, so more after some schoolwork gets done.

I have to write a play. Suicide.