Rome (Part 2: The Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica)

Jonathan, Benjamin and Tiger! I'm going to go ahead and insert the tiger story here. So for over a year, Benjamin has not had a nap or bedtime without his monkey. Monkey regularly comes with us on outings, and both last years 4th of July and Halloween posts featured Monkey. Well, after the first time we lost Monkey, I bought two more, both to have an extra on hand, and to trade them out as they both regularly cycle through the washing machine. When planning the trip to Italy, it was pretty much a given both would be coming, the risk was WAY too high to lose one we couldn't replace while we were there! However, me being the brilliant person I am, a week into our trip I somehow thought we'd be okay in Rome for two nights with only one, so I left the spare at Liz's house in Naples (a few hours and a train ride away). You all know what is coming by now, I'm sure. The first evening there, 45 minutes into walking all over Rome we discover Monkey is missing. It had been raining, and we had bought a poncho to put over Benjamin in his stroller, and he had fallen asleep and dropped Monkey. Normally we are really careful to watch for him to fall, but with the poncho covering them both he apparently managed to slip out the bottom without us noticing. Liz was such a sweetheart, she valiantly retraced ALL our steps to see if she could find him both that night and AGAIN the next morning while she was out running. No luck. That night was not a good one. When we got back to the hotel Benjamin immediately started looking for Monkey under chairs and around the bed, and when I told him that Monkey wasn't there and that he was at Liz's house, he immediately fell to the floor and started crying. I felt SO bad for the poor kid, he was so sad. And as the entire country of Italy closes shop at like 7pm, we couldn't even find so much as a drugstore with some kind of stuffed animal inside for the poor kid. It took over four hours of distressed toddler before he finally fell asleep that night. We tried letting him sleep on a blanket by himself, in bed with us, holding him, rocking him, it wasn't pretty. The poor poor people in the room next to us! At one point Jonathan tied a pair of socks together for him to hold, I kid you not. And what's so sadly pathetic about it is when he woke up the next morning he climbed off the bed to retrieve the socks that had fallen to the floor. Well, Liz did manage to save us the next day, by finding a little tiger for Benjamin. We slowly introduced them that morning and Benjamin decided to bring him when we went out for the day- thank goodness. The next night wasn't nearly as bad (less than two hours?), and then we were back in Naples. Let me tell you we watched that 2nd monkey as closely as we watched Benjamin for the rest of our trip!!
Anyway, back to the rest of the post, Tiger was with us at The Vatican. ;-)


A mummy and a mummy! Ha ha, yeah, I know, very funny. ;-) The next few pictures are from the Egypt exhibit at The Vatican:

This picture was down one really LONG hallway FILLED with some amazing statues:

A doggie! And yes, I know, he's too old for the pacifier during the middle of the day, it's usually ONLY for sleeping, but the poor kid had no monkey, I was pretty much going to give him whatever helped him out at that point! (It did set a precedent for the rest of the museums on the trip though... one we broke off promptly when back in Utah again.)

The architecture and paintings on the walls and ceilings were as amazing as what the rooms held, really really beautiful.

Jonathan and me, and the random stranger posing for our picture? Um, okay... ;-)

Let me just tell you that this giant pine cone statue in the courtyard brought no end of giggles and lame jokes from Jonathan and Liz. They are too alike sometimes, they feed off of each other. ;-)

Ever wonder why there are no overweight people in Italy? The ONLY food they eat is pizza and pasta, it really doesn't make sense... until you account for the stairs. That and the fact that they literally walk everywhere. There are about seven trillion stairs. I swear we must have climbed them all. We quickly developed a good stair technique for Benjamin's stroller, and did a little happy dance every time we came across a working escalator. (Said stair/stroller technique is demonstrated in the picture below.)

This is the map room (I think the more official name is The Gallery of Maps):

And a slightly better view of the ceiling, which was really cool:

Benjamin, the kid who ALWAYS wants a pair of shoes on, started taking them off in Italy. Jonathan's theory is that he discovered his shoes are the toy cars that are always with him. Little bit funny, because he really does play with them like they are cars... he he he.

The School of Athens by Raphael:

The quantity of rare and priceless works in The Vatican is outstanding. How they were all acquired is a little disconcerting. We only got pictures of a very small number of them, it was really overwhelming to see.

They don't let you take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, but The Last Judgement is amazing. It was interesting, the audio guide provided really emphasized the gloom and doom and overall threat of the last judgement. On the other hand, since seeing the painting for the first time Liz has done research on it's interpretation, and apparently many believe that Michelangelo's intent was to show the mercy and redemption involved, particularly regarding the angels pulling people out from hell and saving them. Personally, I don't go through life with a fear of hell that forces me to avoid sin, I think life is an opportunity to make choices that lead to a process of improvement and becoming, a perspective which for me isn't so much gloom and doom. Given that, I liked the second interpretation more. Either way, The Vatican as well as Rome is very catholic... and I'm glad I'm not.

Liz took this picture outside the museum by St. Peter's Basilica:

St. Peter's Basilica:

St. Peter's Square (Kinda cool at night, huh?):

The Pieta, by Michelangelo, in St. Peter's Basilica. The statue portrays Mary holding Christ after the crucifixion. I really was struck again and again with Michelangelo's work, it is beautiful.

Benjamin playing with the umbrella inside:

Hard to see anything besides us, but here we are:

Considering it was dark outside, and not a particularly brightly lit building, not a bad picture.

Benjamin really likes to hold both of our hands when we're walking somewhere, Jonathan and I both find it adorable. :-)