Category: Topics

Descending from the dome wasn’t as bad as climbing the dome, even if it’s 323 claustrophobic steps.  By the way, I didn’t describe too many items in St. Peter’s Basilica, so let me just highlight a couple of exhibits.  On the right side was this statue, the only statue behind a glass.

Michaelangelo sculpted this statue, called Piet?, which means pity, is his only signed work.  Unfortunately in 1972, some crazy dude with a hammer ran in and started chopping at the statue, so it’s been behind bulletproof glass ever since.

Of course, being St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the altars marked the spot where St. Peter was crucified. 

Speaking of St. Peter, we saw a funky bronze statue of St. Peter.  The right toe has been worn out from all the foot-fetishists, and there’s usually a line for kissing the toe.  To avoid foot-and-mouth disease, one could also kiss the hand and rub the toe.  Today the whole center was sealed off, so it was not possible to pay reverence to Paul.

Speaking of which, this whole Basilica started giving me the creeps about how pagan everything seemed.  From the statues, which appeared to be idols, to the altars, to having naked statues inside the Basilica, to the goddesses such as Helena.

Everything just seemed so Greek Mythology, except with Bible character substitution.  Anyway…

After this we decended into the truly creepy crypt, where we were greeted by Egyptian sarcophagus.

Oh wait, that’s the pope.  Anyway, you see the resemblance.  Having the popes being higher than the angels, I suppose it was no wonder they got their altar upon death. 

We also passed by the tomb of the newer popes, who no longer got the same distinction but was lined up with lots of picture takers.  One of these was the latest Pope John Paul II.

Further into the crypt where the tomb of St. Peter was.

You couldn’t actually see the tomb unless you took a 10 euro tour, booked a week in advance, so this was all we could see.

After this we exited the Basilica and passed by the clowns, I mean, guards.

After this we ventured into the Vatican Museum, where more paganism manifested itself, but I’ll leave that for another blog.  🙂

One of the privileges of visiting Rome was bumping into monuments everywhere.  Even when we walked on an obscure, tiny road, we saw walls from the first century fenced off under government protection…

At least that’s what I concluded these were.  Validating my theory would have been an easier feat had we spoken Italian, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

After this, Karen and I locked up our bags and squeezed onto the crowded #64 bus, most famous for its pickpockets.  Thankfully with our vigilant eyes, we didn’t miss the stop or any bags.

There were numerous fountains in Rome powered by their well-designed aqueducts.  They were cool, refreshing, and best of all, free.  Braving the chance of E. Coli infection, Karen and I loaded it up and it tasted better than bottled water.

Since we were still alive after partaking the liquid of unknown origin, we took some pictures of St. Peter’s Square…

And St. Peter’s Basilica, where the Pope typically gave his speeches…

Unfortunately because we didn’t attend Sunday worship, I didn’t get a chance to catch the pope and question him on his infallibility.

After lining up for quite some time, we finally arrived at the entrance of the Basilica, where we encountered this Holy Door.  It’s opened on Christmas Eve every 25 years, when the pope bangs the door three times with some mystic silver hammer and the door opens for pilgrims to pass through.

I asked Karen to walk up for a picture, but to my dismay, Karen decided to take a century before looking forward, so I ended up with a Shampoo ad instead.

When she turned around for the normal shot, we were informed by some bored guards that we could not take pictures with the door.  “Only the door, not people”.  While I reasoned with him, I paved the way for hundreds of other tourists to take pictures behind him, but it certainly didn’t help my own efforts.  In the end it was a futile exercise.

So we entered St. Peter’s Basilica…

Despite the basilica being two football fields away and could hold 60,000 members, the basilica was designed to be intimate using optical illusions.  For example, the statue at the top was much bigger than the statue of the bottom, which made the place feel smaller.

Ironically I’d like some optical illusions around my house to make my house look bigger.

After finishing the Basilica tour, we decided to climb the dome.  We first took the elevator to the first level, then climbed some stairs to the second level.  Unfortunately the safety fence 10 feet tall slightly hindered our ability to exercise our photographic liberties.

Fortunately for us, through some ingenious creativity, circumvented the technical difficulty…

And we were rewarded with a shot of the basilica from the middle of the dome, thanks to my image stabilizing lens…

As we made our way to the upper dome, the path became psychodelic as the walls started twisting and the walkway shrunk alongside of the dome…

And when the rope appeared, we knew we were in for some serious staircase…

After squeezing through the final rat hole, we were greeted with a grand view of St. Peter’s Square.

After this, we decended what appeared to be a prop for Slimfast commercial, considering how slim you had to be to squeeze through.  Just look at Karen…

What’s at the end of this staircase?  What else happened in Vatican City?  How did we we end up watching a modern Chariot race?  Find out next time on my blog!  🙂

After walking through the Colosseum, we headed over to the Roman Forum.  We first went through the Arch of Titus, built by the Jews under the Romans for not worshipping the Emperor.

As we walked down the path, we tried to soak in the fact that these same large basalt stones were also walked on by Caesar Augustus 2,000 years ago.  That’s a lot more history than the puny 200 year history on any street in Seattle…

Then we headed toward the Main Square, which looked like my patchy dead lawn in the summer.

According to Roman legend, some twin brother Romulus (Rome) and Remus couldn’t get dates, so they attacked the nearby tribe and snatched their women.  I have no idea why they’re proud of this story.

Of course, we had to visit the spot where Julius Caesar was burned, after being stabbed by his own Senators…

and the meeting place of the Senates who stabbed him…

I see that the statue is headless.  I’m not sure if that was by design.

After that, we passed by this Victor Emmanuel monument.  I must say that this place seemed much bigger in person.

After that we dropped by a bookstore to use the restroom.  Even though I didn’t speak Italian, there was no mistaking which bathroom is which…

It’s also interesting to observe foreign forms of cute transportation…

as well as the transportation for the police department…

and the aftermath of the transportation device’s foul defilement of the street… oh wait, I didn’t take a picture of that.

Afterwards, we swung by Gelateria della Palma for our first taste of the famous Gelato that everyone says we must try in Europe.

I don’t know what all the raving was about because it tasted just like ice cream.  I suppose it was a little thicker…

After this we arrived at the Pantheon, a roman temple dedicated to all of the gods.  Then in the Middle Ages, it became a Christian church dedicated to all the martyrs.

With this engineering marvel, it had a nice and bright skylight illuminating the interiors.  I love skylights.

It’s the only building continuously used since it was built.  Pretty cool, huh?

After this, we were a little hungry, so we decided to go to Cafeteria Brek, with “a modern, efficient atmosphere and cheap prices”.  Unfortunately when we arrived, we saw a note on the door that said…  hmm…  something we didn’t understand.  But we did understand the universal implication of a locked door.

So we took a detour… a long detour, and arrived at another Rick Steve recommended restaurant:

Ristorante Grotto del Teatro di Pompeo, sitting atop an ancient theater, serves good food at great prices, perfect if you want to dine on a characteristic cobbled street, busy with strolling people and musicians.  It’s well-established, albeit a bit tired, but always populate.  Their pasta radicchio (made with red endive) is good.

So we stepped in, and a rude waitress pointed to a table for us to sit down.  On the table sat a wine glass… with lipstick mark on it.  Hmm, definitely off to a good start. 

We didn’t ask for any bread, but she took the order and brought us some anyway, one of which has already been cut in half.  Either she was really nice and precut it for us or the previous customers did.  She also brought the wrong size of the water.  After about 10 minutes we finally waved her down to explain it to her, and she realized it was meant for the table next door and came and just grabbed it and moved it over.

Finally we got our order of pasta radicchio…

I have no idea why took we the suggestion of an American (Rick Steve) for food because frankly we were… less than impressed.  The other dish we ordered, the seafood pasta, turned out to be much better.

Finally we were ready for the check, which she managed to produce by scribbling on a piece of paper.  How ghetto.  We also noticed 4 euros for the precut bread.  I wished I could have left no tip…  oh wait, I didn’t leave any tip!  But then neither do the Italians so it didn’t really matter.

At least on the way back, we were treated to a nice nightly stroll with a full moon and a night scenery of the Victor Emmanuel monument…

We were able to find our way back to meet our 11pm curfew…  barely  🙂  For more pictures, take a look at the Rome 3 Gallery.  I will be adding comments in individual pictures in the gallery soon.

Next stop, Vatican City!

Karen and I aren’t hiking people.  You’d think that being exposed to the panaramic view of the evergreens here in the Northwest would have transform us, but nope.  Last week, our small group forced us all into the jungle in the form of a tent-camping trip to Wallace Falls, where Erick insisted that the hiking trail is super easy.

Jun brought an oversized 12 men tent partitioned into two sleeping quarters and a common area.  As small group tradition, we had to play a few games of Bang before we hit the sacks…

I must say that this is one interesting camp ground.  There were loud popping noises in the parking lot (popcorn machine? wild animals?), and the unmistakable music of the passing train serenaded us through the night.

In the morning, we identified the source of the popping noise…

On the way toward the trail to the Upper Falls, Karen and I discovered this sign…

Hmm, that black windy diamond didn’t seem to suggest an easy trail…

Definitely not an easy trail.  After suffering immense dehydration, we finally reached the destination.

Where we were greeted by a stealthy thief…

A chipmunk.  It’s the first time I’ve seen one!  I guess that made the trip all worth it.  🙂

Click here for more pictures from Wallace Falls.

(continued from previous Europe trip entry…)

Now we were ready to hit the big Roman attractions, and where else could we have chosen but…

The Colosseum.  Pictures do not do justice the size of this monster.  As soon as we descended the steps to approach the structure, we were greeted by these friendly Gladiators, who Karen took a picture with…

What a nice service from the Colosseum, I thought.  What?  You want me in the picture too?  And you’ll take the picture for us?  Hand you the camera?  Now wait a minute…

As soon as I denied his request, he immediately asked for money.  Initially I refused, but after some haggling, I relented and handed him just a few petty euros.  He watched me in disgust as we hurriedly zipped out of there.  Apparently I had missed this crucial paragraph in my guidebook:

Beware of Goofy Gladiators: For a fee, the incredibly crude modern-day gladiators snuff out their cigarettes and pose for photos.  They take easy-to-swindle tourists for too much money.  Watch out if you tangle with these guys (they’re armed… and accustomed to getting as much as 100 euros from naive Asian tourists).

I suppose we got off easy.

It may be difficult to identify the long line in this picture, but a long line runs somewhere along the middle of the building.  Armed with the Rick Steve guide, we headed to a secret passage that led to a covert ticket booth at a deserted side of the Roman Forum.  Colosseum wait time: 1 hour.  Deserted entrance wait time: 2 minutes.

After what seemed like an endless flight of stairs, we entered the interior…

saw some ancient roman misplaced labels…

and breathed in the immense size of the interior of this place. Pictures cannot do justice unless the picture is enlarged to an appreciable dimension.

The bottom part was supposed to house different trap doors for wild beasts to appear and devour the gladiators.

Finally, we’ve visited our first Roman attraction–a building from the first century where the Romans stuck two theatres together to watch people get their body parts chewed off and people getting killed.  Such savage sport… glad we don’t have anything like this today.  Oh wait, I guess there’s boxing.

After exiting the colosseum, we headed toward…

…the Arch of Constantine, where Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge after seeing the vision of a cross in the sky the night before.  This is where Christianity is legalized.  Before AD 300, you were killed as a Christian, but afterwards, you were killed for not being one.

After this, we headed over to the Roman Forum next door, but I’ll share that next time, on my blog!