Day 20 - Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, Dome of St. Peters, Journey to Sorrento

Day 20 started early in the morning with the group traveling from the villa to the Vatican. Fr. Bergin did not join us on the trip over due to his meeting with a certain spiritual leader for Mass early in the morning.

Fr. Bergin and Pope Francis following the concelebration of Mass. Apparently, Francis told Fr. Bergin, after hearing that he works at BC with the Jesuits, that he needs to "watch out for those Jesuits"

We met up with Fr. Bergin at the front entrance of the Vatican Museums. The line for the museums was insanely long, but we were able to skip most of it thanks to reserved tickets. 

This place was PACKED. Everyone in Rome wanted in. The place was filled with art from all different time periods split up in different collections. Many different "tracks" were mapped out based on different collections and the time that it would take to see them all. You could spend a week in that museum and not see everything. We took somewhat of an intermediate track. The pictures below are just some choice pictures that I found interesting.

Painting by Melozzo da Forlì showing Giuliano della Rovere, standing as a cardinal, speaking with Pope Sixtus IV

A (blurry) portrait of Pope Alexander VI 

Cortile della Pigna

Fontana della Pigna, a fountain of a pinecone that used to be near the Pantheon - now it just kind of sits there

Laocoön and His Sons, a very famous ancient sculpture found in the 1500s
 which is thought to have been in the palace of the Roman Emperor Titus (so around 2000 years old)

The hall of maps, which shows most of the provinces of Italy in impressive detail - the Google Maps of the 1500s

Room dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary, showing Pius IX in the background invoking papal infallibility on the subject, making it Catholic dogma and something to be accepted by all Catholics

Raphael's The School of Athens

Raphael's Disputation of the Holy Sacrament

At one point, I realized that we would be making our way into the Borgia Apartments. I was given no warning of this. I got very excited. I was, however, dumbfounded when I walked inside.

The rooms were stripped bare of their paintings and their tapestries. The art was replaced with contemporary "art". I am by no means a fan of contemporary art. I realize some people enjoy it very much but I found it disturbing that the museum would remove perfectly beautiful and important art from hundreds of years ago and replace it with modern art. I would have been less upset if they had replaced the art with other ancient pieces; there is no possible way that the Vatican "ran out" of art to fill the rooms with. I had to settle with the ceiling frescoes and the fireplace, which are things that they could never remove if they wanted to. Upon looking up the facts, the man responsible for making the apartments into a studio for contemporary art is Pope Paul VI. I was already not very fond of this man for other reasons, so this offense added to my distaste. Oh well.

The pope's fireplace, with a painting of the Colosseum painted probably 10 years ago by a 3rd grader worth $2 million

Moving from the Borgia Apartments, we came upon the Sistine Chapel.

Pictures were not allowed inside (which is still an unnecessary rule in my opinion). Police were actually inside and stopping people with cameras. I saw one or two people have their cameras taken and pictures deleted. I find it strange, seeing as the paintings are no secrets - you can find hundreds of pictures of every fresco in there on Google in seconds. There isn't a good reason why you aren't allowed to take pictures. That being said, there is nothing in the Sistine Chapel that you haven't already seen before. What is interesting to note, however, is the fact that the room itself is far less impressive than it's worked up to be. Michelangelo's frescoes on the ceiling are high up and some are hard to make out. The room isn't all that big and I imagine Conclave gets a bit cramped. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome to be there (with all 1000 of us crammed inside) but the idea of the chapel is definitely overplayed. If the place were empty and I was given access to a scissor lift, however, I would have had an absolute ball.

When we left the museums, we exited near the entrance to the Dome of St. Peters. A bunch of us decided that this was a must before we left the Vatican for the last time. The price was 5 euros to climb the whole way up or 7 to take an elevator part of the way. We opted for the elevator simply for time's sake. After taking the lift, however, you still have about 350 steps to take to get to the top.

A short staircase takes you inside the very bottom of the dome, looking into the Basilica.

Looking down over the baldachin over the High Altar and the Chair of St. Peter

What is really amazing when you get to this point is looking on the walls at the "paintings". An important note is that there are only 2 (I think) actual paintings in the entirety of the basilica of St. Peters. Every other piece of wall art that looks like a painting is actually a mosaic!! This includes the "Tu es Petrus..." that adorns the inside of the dome. I took a picture of one of the angels to give you an idea. They are so well done that, when you look up at them from below, they are as smooth as paint on canvas.

After yet another tiny staircase, we came to somewhat of an oddity. The room started to turn on us. I felt like I was walking through something out of Ripley's Believe it or Not. This was definitely not something for anyone that is overweight or claustrophobic. The higher we went, the more the room slanted.

The reward, however, was incredible and definitely worth it.

The Pantheon, the Vittoriano, and about a dozen other Roman sites visible from the apex of Vatican City

The crew at the top of the dome

Coming back down from the dome, you could see quite a bit of what is hidden to the people down in the square. For example, the backs of the statues along the topside. Who would have thought, when they were sculpted, that tourists would want to come up and see them? Why, then, would you finish the back of them? For the most part, these statues are pretty crudely sculpted on the back. It's also kind of funny to see that each statue has a little bronze plaque at the bottom that says who they are. It doesn't do you a lot of good if you're in the plaza, but I suppose if we ever forget who they are someone could come up and check.

The back of Christ in the center of the basilica 

The whole roof is essentially a big plaza. What's more, there's also a souvenir shop and a little restaurant up there as well! Who would know? You can't see any of this from the plaza. I took the next picture to give you an idea.

Left - Souvenir shop and Vatican mailbox (yellow); Middle - Refreshment stand and drinking fountain;
Right - Cross with Jesus

The elevator back to the ground level dropped us off right inside of the basilica. We had seen people coming out of this door when we toured the church earlier in the trip but we had no idea where they were coming from.

It was noticeably emotional when we started leaving the basilica. I kept looking back in and seeing the High Altar and the sculptures and was getting rather sad. Even as we walked outside and continued to look back, I was very sad that I had to leave this wonderful place. What really got to me was the fact that, in all reality, I had no idea when I would see that place again. If I go to Cape Cod for vacation and leave, I'm sad to leave but I know that it's only a few hours down the street. If I spend the semester at BC and come home, I'm sad to leave but know that I can come back whenever I want. When I left St. Peters, I was truly emotional because the next time I have the money to take the trans-Atlantic flight and spend some time in Rome will not be anytime soon. I am very grateful for the time that I had to spend in places like this and am most definitely blessed. I look forward to returning here to marvel once again at the great majesty and wonder that God has provided for His pilgrim church on Earth.

After we said our goodbyes to Vatican City for the last time, we made a fast sprint back to the villa to grab our things for the free weekend. We turned right around and made for Termini, where we purchased tickets for Naples.

After a 2 hour train ride, we hopped off the train in the Naples station. Some people may like Naples, but I was definitely happy to know that I wasn't going to spend more than half an hour in that place. I genuinely felt unsafe. We bought our tickets for the local train to Sorrento and hopped on as quickly as we could.

After an hour, we walked off the train in the town of Vico Equense, a comune in the province of Naples. I was under the impression that we were staying in Sorrento but it just so happens that Vico Equense was 4 stops on the local train from Sorrento (about a 1,30 euro train fare). Our "four star" hotel left much to be desired if you were expecting a four star American hotel, but in terms of European living it wasn't bad for the price. The hotel also had one heck of a view out the front door.

One of our 2 quaint triples. The room was very, very, very, very, very pink

The view outside

We wandered around for a bit and tried our hardest to get down to the shoreline, but found that it was nearly impossible. This town was essentially built right on the edge of the cliff and this section of the waterfront was owned by mostly private marinas and hotels. Access to the water was not easy to find. We decided just to grab a quick dinner and head to bed.

Tomorrow, we will take an early train to Sorrento and grab a ferry to the island of Capri!

Thus ends the 20th day.