Still blogging!

I know I said the last post would be my final one but it got long fast and I had not even begun to talk about all we did and saw during those crazy days in Rome. So here goes another entry.... Our first full day in Rome was one of the most exciting! We were scheduled to go to the Vatican City Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and to St. Peter's Cathedral. A handful of us were also on a quest to find rose-scented rosaries made from real crushed roses. We met our guide Carolina bright and early in the morning wearing our most modest clothes - no knees, no shoulders allowed in the Vatican. We wondered through the Vatican Museum collection, hitting the highlights and soaking in the beautiful works which ranged from ancient Greek and Roman sculptures to modern art. My favorite was the Laocoön Group - a beautifully carved swirling, twisting, dramatic, sculpture done during the Hellenistic Period at the end of the Late Classical Period. We all took lots of pictures for Mrs. Umfress since it is one of her favorites too.

Then we continued on to the Map Rooms and the Raphael Rooms where we saw of course the famous School of Athens  - the girls were so excited to see something they had studied in so many classes before - Art History, History, Humanities, etc.
Next we arrived at the much anticipated Sistine Chapel where we squeezed in with a crowd of other pilgrims to witness the absolute genius of Michelangelo in his Sistine Ceiling paintings and his Last Judgement on the back wall. As I stood there, I remembered being in a Michelangelo Art History class studying the Sistine Ceiling thinking "I will never get to go there, not in a million years." It made me want to cry thinking that I had indeed made it there and that it was just as amazing as I thought it would be. Finally, we saw another of my all-time must see sculptures in St. Peter's - Michaelangelo's Pietà - again there were tears. Even though, we had to fight the crowds and view this masterpiece through thick plexiglass, it was one of the most beautiful and moving pieces I have ever laid eyes on. If Michelangelo's intent (as the title suggests) was to instill pity in the viewer, he absolutely succeeded.
Ok, Sistine Ceiling, Laocoön, Pietà.... you would think I would be satisfied, right? WRONG! There was so much more to come - Bernini and Caravaggio galore!

However, the next day, we got a lovely respite from the constant walking, the oppressive heat, and noise and crowds of the city, just in time. We rode on a bus out of Rome to Tivoli to see the hauntingly beautiful ruins of Hadrian's Villa - can we say the simple title of "villa" does not begin to explain it? It is much more like a compound, a country kingdom. Anyway, as we strolled through the ruins, the olive trees, and the pools of water, it was not hard to imagine what splendour would have filled the eyes of the lucky elite who would have been entertained there. After a lovely but rather sunny morning, we took the bus to our next venue - the cool and mysterious depths of the catacombs. Although, there were a few girls who were a bit creeped out and a few adults who were a bit worried about claustrophobia, everyone ventured down and enjoyed the tour, not to mention our wonderful tour guide who had the girls sing to calm their nerves. She told them that the Early Christians would have sung so that they should too. It was so neat to listen to the girls singing chapel hymns and harmonizing as we slowly processed through the catacombs filled with a holy and sacred peace. Also, the temperature was much to everyone's liking as well. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the catacombs.

Walking through Hadrian's Villa