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EXODIA FOREVER
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After all those hours of shuffling around and ogling treasures we really needed a pick me up. Above is the ‘tiramisu’ coffee I got at Sant’ Eustachio II. This roaster was founded in 1938, uses its own secret blend and (supposedly) water from an ancient aqueduct! Who knows if it’s true, but we were sold on it!
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Our tour ended at St Peter’s Basilica, so we finally got to see inside the building where we had been underneath on the excavations tour!
I thought we had already seen some large basilicas (St Johns in particular), but the church of the Pope really dwarfs all others. It also contains works from Michelangelo, Bernini, Raphael...another place full of exquisite art.
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Sure, the Sistine Chapel is nice...but my favourite spot in the Vatican is the so-called ‘map room’.
It really encapsulates that ‘if less is more, imagine how much more more will be?!’ attitude that the Vatican has!😹
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You know what’s delicious? Pizza ‘corners’ stuffed with meatballs, egg plant parmigiana and chicken cacciatore. Also suppli a.k.a little fried balls of rice and sauce and cheesy goodnesss!!😻😻😻
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Here is a boring picture from outside the walls of Rome. Day 2 we did an afternoon/evening tour that was AMAZING, but no photos allowed! It was a Crypts & Catacombs tour, so no pics because all the areas we visited were considered sacred.
The tour first took us out of Rome a bit, so we could go in the underground catacombs the early Christians had to bury their loved ones in (as they weren’t allowed to bury anyone inside the city walls). These catacombs were even where the first Popes were buried! Not exactly glamorous, as they were dark and dank enough in modern times with electric light and proper stairs - by rope and candle light would have made for very eerie visits!
Next we visited the Basicila of St Clemente. This 12th Century Basilica was lovely on the surface, but even more fascinating underneath! It was built on the remains of a 4th Century Church (with some of the earliest Christian wall paintings in Rome), which in turn was built upon a 3rd Century Pagan temple....which in turn was built on top of a 1st Century residence!! Now we start to see why Rome is called the ‘archeological lasagne’!😹
Last stop was the Crypt of the Capuchin Friars. I WISH we could have taken photos!! A series of small chapels that are all decorated with the bones of Capuchin Friars. They designs are all quite eerie (sometimes encorporating whole mummified monks), but are intended to act as a ‘memento mori’ reminding you that your time on earth is fleeting!
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Some of the lovely things to see at the Capitoline Museums, including the famous Capitoline Wolf. It depicts the legend of Remus and Romulus (future founders of Rome), who are feeding from the she-wolf who raised them.
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Day 2:
Here is the view of the Forum from the Capitoline Museums!
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Been having plenty of pizza and the house red wine while in Italy! 🍕 🍷
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That night the history of Christianity continued! Months ago Laura had emailed the ‘Scavi’ Excavations Office of the Vatican so we could get on one of the rare archeological tours that go UNDER the Vatican! She may have ‘emphasised’ her History degree, but they agreed to take us.
Sadly no pictures allowed. Our tour guide was a Priest from New York who was on a 3 year stint at the Vatican. He took us down underneath St Peter’s Basilica where there is the site of pagan and Christian cemeteries from the 1st Century aaand what the Vatican claims is the tomb of Saint Peter himself (if not him, some other man with no feet...)!
It was dark, humid and very very fascinating!
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Sorry for the lack of updates, but Rome has been a real whirlwind! We are staying in a hotel that is a good 40 mins out of the city by PT, so we tend to go out in the morning and stay out all day...so I’ve been falling dead asleep as soon as we’ve gone back to the room!
Day 1 in Rome:
We met up with a tour guide who took us around the earlier churches of Rome. While many had been renovated in the Baroque style later on, these were Churches that were founded back in the time of Emperor Constantine (who converted).
Highlights of this tour were getting invited in by nuns to see the ACTUAL room Mother Theresa lived and slept in (they also gave us plenty of medallions and pamphlets to ‘take back to our parish’ which made me feel guilty!!). I also enjoyed the peaceful courtyard above from one church where the Sisters live in a cloister.
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Now for some of the more ‘unusual’ items at the archeological museum, found in the ‘Secret Cabinet’!
There were erotic frescoes and sexually explicit decorations and objects throughout Pompeii, as the Ancient Roman view of sexuality had a very different understanding of obscenity. As you can imagine, when the ruins of Pompeii were unearthed in the 1700s these objects were considered offensive and were hidden away! They were simply too pornographic for the general public and were put in a secret chamber in 1821. Then when the rumours became too rife the doorway to the chamber was bricked up in 1849!
The ‘secret chamber’ was from then on strictly controlled, which meant only a few ‘educated’ men could get permission to see it. It was only fully opened to the public in 2000.
Above is one example of a frescoe that likely would have decorated a brothel. The second, more unusual object is a lucky charm of sorts. The male genitalia symbolised fecundity, prosperity and warded off evil influences. Noise was also a powerful chant to ward off bad vibes, so babies and animals often had bells strung around their necks. What could therefore be luckier than bronze bells hanging from phalluses to decorate your home or business?!😂😂
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While the ruins of Pompeii were fantastic, we had been told that the best of the archeological discoveries had been nicked by the King of Naples back in the 1700s and brought back to his city. Thus, after a quick sandwich we were off on a train to Naples!
Our afternoon was spent at the Naples Archeological Museum, where there was an astonishing amount of frescoes, mosaics, statues etc. that had all been preserved by the volcanic ash and recovered. My favourite find was the detailed portrait (pic 1)!
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Pompeii was an ancient Roman city that was buried under ash and pumice when the volcanic Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
What killed most of the citizens (the ash that filled the air and deprived people of oxygen), kept much of the town perfectly preserved for all of these years, making an archeological gold mine. It’s truly amazing what has been preserved from the disaster, giving us a great insight into how advanced life was for people so long ago.
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Thursday morning we hopped on a train to get to Pompeii. Got off the wrong station. Got on another train...made it!
Only our guide never turned up to meet us!! We were told by the other official guides that the online company we booked with were notorious for cancelling in Winter if they didn’t get enough people coming. Uh oh.
We ended up going along on a tour with one of the official guides, a funny local named Enzo, and in the end it was for the best. He showed us all the archeological highlights of Pompeii in 2 hours, while having all of us in stitches!
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The next day we farewelled Florence (with some reluctance) and took a train to Naples. From there we were picked up by a driver who took us on a 2 hour drive (traffic was bad) to Sorrento!
Sorrento is a popular spot for beach holidays in the summer, but for us it was to be a base to go out and see Pompeii. Here was the view from our room, which while a bit gloomy in winter was still lovely. That is Mt Vesuvius in the background!
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Here for your enjoyment are all the creepiest baby Jesus faces I saw at the Accademia...there were a lot.
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