Rome - Day II

Musei Vaticani 

On the second morning we went to the Musei Vaticani. I had made an online reservation which was really good. There was a long queue even before the museum opened. Nice feeling to walk  past it

The Musei Vaticani contain a large amount of high quality art and even if you spent three hours there you won`t be able to see everything. I wasn`t interested in the stamp and coin collection but there were so many areas that I was excited about. Artist like Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raffael designed rooms there and that`s only the beginning. I would have preferred to spent my time there alone to have more time for every piece of art without feeling like I had to hurry. I just shouldn`t take along other people to museums that I´m really interested in. Or at least split up for some time.


Sadly the hall which contains most of the statues was closed for public that day.
On the left you can see a tapestry from the Pinacoteca. A really impressive place. The room lies in almost - darkness and next to giant tapestries there are paintings from Raphael ("Transfiguration") or Leonardo ("St.Jerome). Then there`s Tizian, Veronese and Caravaggio.



I love Caravaggio! His paintings are so impressive. How he plays with light an darkness!  I came across copies from many of the paintings here in various churches in the following days.



This picture was taken in the Sala Rotonda. It`s a large round room with something like a giant bathtub in the middle, surrounded by statues standing in the niches in the walls and the floor is covered with mosaic.
There are other rooms where dozens of sacophagi are shown and sometimes you suddenly step out into  small court with a fountain in the middle.













The Gregorian Egyptian Museum shows sarkophgi from Egypt, mummies and all sorts of vessels. In the picture on the right you can see old letters. Imagine how long it took to write that. And now we type messages in a few seconds. But one thing I really don`t understand: why do people take selfies with a mummy? Bad enough to place a dead body in a vitrine, but ok, that`s at least interesting. But a selfie? Really?

 That`s the ceiling in the Gallery of Maps. The rooms themselves are a piece of art. Every room, every hallway has painted ceilings and/ or mosaic on the foor.
The walls in the  Gallery of Maps show maps of the whole of Italy, so you are surrounded by the country when you walk through the corridor.










 
The most wonderful rooms are the Stanze die Raffaelo. Some Pope asked Raphael to paint the frescoes in one wing of the palace. He painted most of them himself, only in the last room his pupils had to complete them after his design. It`s so great to walk through these rooms full of paintings. In the Stanza delle Segnatura, which was intended to be a library, he painted allegories of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry and Justice. The fresco "School of Athens" is well known, I think. In most of these paintings he creates a stunning illusion of three dimensional space, what is called Trompe l`oeil.

More ceilings. It was a bit of an overload in the end. At some point I could`t  distinguish between real stucco and fake stucco anymore. And I took so many photos, it was really hard to decide which ones to show you.

 

 Some of the windows were open and I had a wonderful view on the city. I was glad that we went to the museum in the morning, so we could enjoy the weather in the afternoon.



Really interesting was also the small collection of modern art, for example from Picasso, Kandinsky or Dalí. Most people walked right past these paintings without even looking at them, but some were really fascinating.





 

If you enlarge the picture you can probably see the mosaics with the names of  Leonardo and Tizian.

 The whole day it looked like it was going to rain. Very dramatic, but it stayed sunny and warm.
 
What I can`t show you in pictures (but I`m sure you`ve already seen plenty of it) is the Sistine Chapel. Of course one of the highlights of the whole trip. And it`s just amazing. You can`t depict the atmosphere in photos. The whole room is covered in frescos made by Michelangelo and they all match perfectly with one another. They look so small and so large at the same time. I was glad that we were able to stand there for approximately half an hour and just look. The only thing that got a bit on my nerves were the guys telling us via microphone to be silent (in different languages, every other minute).

San Pietro in Vaticano

We had to wait for another security check before we could enter the Basilica. The queue was not really long and it was funny to listen to the different languages of the other people. I was really happy about those British tourists right in front of me, just because I loved listening to them.
I was really happy about the clouds for the moment, because we were standing on St. Peter`s Square and with the sun shining it would have been really hot.

The whole place was already prepared for the festal service on the following day. That`s why there are lots of chairs, screens and barriers in almost every photo. But nontheless it was really amazing.

I had thought that the square and the basilica would be nice to look at, they were designed by Bernini (who was burried inside the basilica) and many others after all. But Vatican hat never really interested me. I`m not catholic after all. Being there didn`t feel like standing in front of a church or being at a place  of big religious importance to many people. To me it was more like a giant Museum with a fantastic example of renaissance and baroque architecture and art.

If you imagine it without this construction in the middle, its just breathtaking! All the columns around the oval square with hundreds of angels on top of them.

It seems to be almost too pompous to be a church. But it`s impressive anyway.  Everywhere is gold, little details and statues.

Then there is this piece of art by Michelangelo. I saw a copy in the Musei Vaticani that was not half as impressive. Strange, because it technically looked the same. Maybe it seemed different because of the context, but I can`t tell exactly.
In the right picture you can see the the apse in the background and the altar with Bernini`s baldacchino in the foreground.
Even the floor looks great!

The inside of the dome, that can be seen from every high place in Rome. I would have loved to go up there and I´m still a  bit annoyed that I agreed to leave for the Castel Sant` Angelo at that point.

The swiss guard at one entrence to the Vatican. Didn`t know that they are so colourful...

 Parallel to the Via della Conciliazione (above) there`s the ancient escape way for the Pope (left picture). It leads from the basilica directly to the Castel Stant`Angelo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Castel Sant`Angelo
I was really looking forward to seeing this mausoleum/prison/castle/museum that I only knew from the opera "Tosca". 

The Ponte Sant`Angelo is really lovely with all the statues. The architecture of the castle itself is way more chaotic. Parts were destroyed and rebuilt, the purpose of the building changed over time... It`s really funny. And there are almost no signs to tell you where to go. Once we ended up in a dead end and had to walk back around the whole tower-thing.














Some of the rooms are now a museum. There, parts of the history of the place are shown.

From the top of the castle we had a really nice view. Above you can see the Vatican and below the buildings around the Piazza Venezia.

The angel on top of the roof was obviously engaged in a fight with a gull ;-)

We used the secod entry of the Roma Pass in the Castel Sant`Angelo. Otherwise it would have been too expensive. But the view from the top was definitely worth the visit. The inside was nice too, but lots of stairs and confusing signs or no signs at all.

I had made the desicion to head straight to the Forum Romanum. There is one ticket for the Colosseum and the Forum Romanum and you have to use it in two days or it expires. The walk from the Tiber to the Forum gave me plenty of opportunities for photographing.

 

 

 

 Piazza Navona

 The Piazza Navona was very crowded but nonetheless charming with the buildings surrounding it and the oval shape that is still a reminder of the former use of this Piazza as a kind of stadium.

There are three fountains on the Piazza Navona. The most impressive one is the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, designed by Bernini. It shows the personifications of four big rivers on four continents. 

Pantheon
I insisted on going to the Pantheon on the same day and I`m really glad I did. Since we walked from the Castel St Angelo to the Forum Romanum it was just a short detour.

As you can see the Piazza della Rotonda was also crowded but not too much. The Pantheon doesn`t look at all like a church from the outside, because luckily the ancient Roman building was very well preserved. On the inside everything seems to be very solid and massive. It`s just one single, big round room. Strange feeling to be there. The painter Raffael is buried there and so are two kings of Italy. 

A view from the side of the Pantheon on the Piazza della Rotonda.










  

The building on the right is the Palazzo Venezia. I love how it looks next to those mediterranian trees.

Forum Romanum

 You could spend at least one whole day at the Forum with its many museums and the Palatino. After all the baroque and renaissance architecture it felt good to walk between these ancient ruins. A totally different feeling. More serious. In moments like that I feel very close to time. Like I can almost grasp what time really means. In Carthage a few years ago I felt it even stronger.  

 

The Forum Romanum was the ancient city center. A market, a meeting point, surrounded by government buildings.
There is this church, Santa Maria Antiqua, with really old frescoes from the 5th or 6th century. Right outside, a staircase leads up to a platform from where you can see large parts of the Forum.

In the above picture there are the ruins of the Maxentius Basilica (with the three large arches) in the background on the right. Right in the middle, in the background there`s the Basilica Sante Cosma e Damiano which includes original Roman buildings. In the foreground you can see the house of the Vestals.

Looking in the direktion of the Capitoline Hill there`s the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the middle. On the right side there are the remains of the Temple of Vesta and on the left the Arch of Septimus Severus next to the Church of Saints Luca e Martina. 

Again the Temple of Vesta and the house of the Vestals. The wather was adding a touch of drama to the whole cenery.







This is the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina which was converted into a Roman Catholic church many centuries ago.














Up on the Palatino it was a totally different atmosphere. So quiet. And it looks rather like on the countryside than in the middle of a big city. The Palatine Hill is the most central one of the seven hills of Rome.

I went to this viewpoint to see the Vatican. On the way I met a couple from Paris. We started to talk because they were asking for the explanation of an English word. Then we ended up comparing Rome to Paris, we spoke about my last trip to Paris and we had so much fun!

This is the Hippodrome of Domitian. I don`t know anything about it actually, but the way the stones lie there looks nice.

Look at the olive trees! And the pine trees! Did I mention that I love mediterranean plants?













We descended at the backside and ended up just behind the Colosseum where they were trying to take wedding photos. Good luck, with all the tourists all over the place...





And another day ended with a  fantastic pizza in the small streets behind the Colosseum, the plan to get up at 5 a.m. the next day already in my mind...



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