Originally, I had planned for this weekend to
be a two-day trip to Bologna and Ravenna since, to get to Ravenna from Arezzo,
you have to go through Bologna station. However, the weather forecasts said
there would be nothing but rain and rain and clouds in both Bologna and
Ravenna, I decided to alter my plans. Bologna would be no fun without the sun
shining, but I knew that destinations where the sights were inside would be
fine. I ended up choosing to visit Rome (specifically some churches and the
Vatican) on Saturday and heading from there to Ravenna to stay overnight and
see the old mosaics (inside of course) on Sunday.
The weekend started off a little rocky. The
night before leaving proved to be difficult since I had trouble printing my
tickets and confirmation info (everything eventually did get printed) and my
very early departure time (7:45am) meant that I misjudged the bus times and
ended up having to walk part of the way to the station. However, the train ride
was smooth, and, when I arrived in Rome, it was perfectly rainy out. Deciding
that both my leg and the weather made walking sound awful, I bought a metro
pass (boy was that line crowded! Thank goodness it moved quickly!). I then took
the metro to the Repubblica station in order to go see a church recommended to
me by another dancer, Santa Maria degli Angeli. Although I was prepared to not
be impressed, I ended up absolutely loving the church. It was very open and
spacious and every wall was covered in paintings. One of my favorite
discoveries was that there was a long metal line in the floor that measured the
years and had the astrological sybols around it.
 |
| Inside the Santa Maria degli Angeli |
 |
| One of the astrological symbols on the floor. |
After I left the church, I decided to go
looking for food. Heading out of the piazza to find something only lead to me
stepping in a deep puddle and soaking my left foot, but I eventually found a
place to eat in the piazza. From there, I went back down to the metro and took
it to the Vatican. Or, at least to the stop closest to the Vatican. I had to
walk up some stairs and down some streets (composing a song along the way), but
eventually I reached the Vatican museum. Since I already reserved tickets, I
bypassed the long line outside and made my way through the crowd inside to the
ticket windows. I then quickly got my ticket and entered the museum.
The museum begins with a choice of an
escalator or a winding ramp with a view of some old boating artifacts.
Normally, with this leg, I would pick the escalator, but the line for it made
it completely unappealing and I chose to look at the boats. Once at the top, I
realized that this wouldn’t be as easy to navigate as I had thought. There were
two signs, pointing in opposite directions, and both listed quite a few museums
on them. Since I wanted to save the Sistine Chapel for later, I opted to go
right first. From this choice, I then decided to go into the Pinoteca first
since it was the closest. When I walked in, it turned out that this museum
section hosted all of the artwork portraying religious themes or scenes form
the bible. I expected to really be put off by this room (so many Christian
saints die horrible deaths that I don’t really want to look at in paintings and
the crucifixion process is gruesome), but this section ended up being my
favorite in the entire Vatican museums! There were just so many beautiful
paintings with subjects with incredibly expressive faces. There were also a ton
of really interesting and sassy Marys, which I thoroughly enjoyed seeing.
 |
| The Magdalene |
 |
| Close up of a painting I adored. |
 |
| Close up of Mary |
Another reason I may have liked this section is that it felt the most like a
museum. In most of the other sections, I often had no control over the pace I
was moving at, was incredibly boxed in by other people, it was loud, and I
occasionally saw people touching statues that they shouldn’t. Urgh!
From this section, I attempted to see the
other museum sections on the right, but the only one I could get into was the
Vatican postal museum, which bored me fast. As I walked back to the sign to go
left, I noticed that the rain had stopped, so I briefly went on the terrace to
look around and get a drink of water at the fountain. I then went left from the
sign only to see more signs pointing in different directions with multiple
museums listed on each one. I think by the end of the day, I had seen all of
the museums open in the Vatican, but it is definitely possible that I could have
missed a few.
Okay…let’s retrace the path I took. In a
nutshell I started in the Egyptian museum (not as cool or exciting as the one
in Turin), went into the greek/roman human statue area (also not impressed. I
was really surprised that I didn’t love this section, but the statues just
weren’t as amazing as the ones I saw in Greece. I think I had too high
expectations), walked up the stairs to the animal greek/roman statue room (so
amazing but they really didn’t let you get close enough in my opinion),
continued through many more rooms and a courtyard of mostly boring greek/roman
statues and other stone artifacts, headed up the stairs to the Etruscan museum
(oh god the pots…after Greece I just can’t do that many pots in one place ever
again), and into the long stretch to the Sistine Chapel and back.
 |
| Of of the few things I took a picture of in the Egyptian section |
 |
| Hallway filled with statues and busts in the Greek/Roman section |
 |
| Add caption |
In this stretch, I went through more rooms
with boring greek/roman statues, a lot of halls with the walls and ceilings
painted (mostly I found these dull, though I really enjoyed two of them. The
first being a domed room with the ceiling painted with a fight between angels
and demons and the second being a long hallway where the walls were covered
with huge maps of sections of Italy), some rooms painted by Raphael (size was
impressive….subjects not so much), saw a great painting of Salome, a rooms with
some religious services artifacts, many rooms of modern art (it definitely
lived up to the bad connotations of “modern art”), and then I was at the
Chapel.
 |
| Part of ceiling fresco I enjoyed |
 |
| Close up on a picture of Salome |
 |
| Part of the map room |
And I really wasn’t that impressed.
Maybe it was the hype, maybe it was that I
was really art-ed out, but I have a feeling that it was the design that bored
me the most. I think I had been expecting some really big paintings that took
up a majority of the ceiling with other designs and paintings around them.
However, it was just a lot of religious scenes all of about the same size and
all contained in rectangles that tiled the ceiling. It was just too monotone
and too much to take in. However, I did find the famous rectangle containing
Adam and god reaching to touch and a scene with Adam and Eve and the snake
right next to it, and I did enjoy seeing those two. But, even so, I wasn’t that
amazed and I left the Chapel to get out of the crowd as quickly as possible.
From there, I began the tortuous walk back (I
was really sick of art at that point). I don’t remember much except that there
were some wonderfully open windows that I saw some cool views from, there were
more papal robes on display, more rooms with painted walls and ceilings, more
religious paintings, and some globes that mapped the stars (I did stop for
these…these were cool).
 |
| Globe of the constilations |
Back at where I first made my choice to go
right or left and ready to leave, I realized that I still hadn’t seen St.
Peter’s Basilica and that I didn’t know how to get there. Eventually, I
realized I had to leave the museum to do so, so I walked down the ramp-like
stairs and left the museum. I then walked around the wall containing the
Vatican to reach the piazza where the Basilica was only to find a huge line
snaking out of the church and most of the way around the piazza. Since I didn’t
have a huge amount of time left in Rome, I decided to leave the Basilica to
another day and I went back to the subway. On the metro, I had another choice
to make: just head back to the train station or try to go to the last church I
wanted to see in the hour I had left? I opted to push my luck and I ran through
the metro to switch lines and go to the church Monica had recommended to me.
Luckily, the church ended up being about a minute’s walk from the metro so I
had no timing issues. However, I was rather bored by the church itself. The
architecture and walls were plain and the Michelangelo statue I had come to see
ended up being not as spectacular as I had hoped. Even so, I did end up really
liking some of the statues of death that were scattered through the church.
 |
| Michelangelo's sculpture in the church |
 |
| Statue of death |
Since I hadn’t been enthralled, I made good time back to the metro and decided
to buy water. Unfortunately, the machine sold me fizzy stuff so I had to buy a
normal bottle with my dinner when I got back to the train station. After
quickly picking up some pizza and good water, I ran to my train (picking up an
extra bottle along the way since I knew I was going to be reeeeeally thirsty),
and boarded.
From there, it was a smooth ride to Ravenna.
However, once in Ravenna, I realized that this city wasn’t nearly as lit up at
night nor well-signed as I had thought so I ended up taking a taxi from the
station to my hostel. I ended up really liking the hostel (the staff was so
nice, the facilities were clean and really artsy in decoration, breakfast was
great, my bed was comfy and I slept the night) though it wasn’t the smoothest
stay I’ve ever had (for a while I thought no one was manning the check in
counter when I arrived, there turned out to be no soap in the bathroom I used
though I found one with soap that I used the next morning, and the metal key
locks they had on the doors didn’t like me).
In the morning, I woke up earlier than I had
planned, went to breakfast, and checked out. Using the amazing map that the
hostel gave me, I walked without any problem to the first stop on my mosaic
journey. In this rectangular church, the two long side walls held mosaics
portraying many women offering crowns to Mary on one side and many men offering
crowns to Jesus on the other. I will admit, I had heard that the mosaics were
going to be incredible, but I was still really amazed by what I saw. The
details, the colors, and the sheer size of the designs were phenomenal in all
of the sites that I went to and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.
 |
| Mosaics at first site |
 |
| Mosaics at first site |
From this site, I then went to the tomb of
Dante (which was sadly small and I nearly passed by it. However, I realized
that that was it when I backtracked and discovered a huge crowd had converged
in the five seconds I had been away)
 |
| Tomb of Dante |
and then walked to the next two mosaic
sites (which were located right next to each other). The first was a baptistery
where the designs showed Jesus being baptized, the apostles, and other
Christian iconography. What I really enjoyed about this site was how close I
was able to get to the mosaics and how intimate it was while still being a
large space (also, the designs were beautiful too).
 |
| The second mosaic site |
 |
| The second mosaic site |
 |
| The second mosaic site |
 |
| The second mosaic site |
The next site was actually a museum that
contained two rooms with mosaic ceilings, many old stone carvings from
churches, some old religious service items, and bits of mosaics of people saved
from other sites. I really loved the mosaic ceilings in this site (there were
DUCKS all of one of them, the colors were spectacular, and it was amazing
getting so close to the bits of people mosaics), but I hated that you could not
take pictures at this site (it didn’t stop me from trying to sneakily snap a
few though. However, I think the museum worker guy suspected me since he kept
walking in and it made me antsy so I only got a few pictures).
 |
| The third mosaic site |
 |
| The third mosaic site |
After leaving this site, I realized it was
still well before noon and I only had two more sites to see! Since it had
stopped raining, I killed time until noon by just wandering around, finding a
restaurant, and just playing solitaire and Sudoku on my phone for a while. Once
noon hit, I then entered the restaurant, got my food, and ate as slowly as
possible. My dish (cannanolli al ragu…I think) was tasty, but not something I’d
order regularly and my dessert (some cake thing smothered in chocolate), ended
up being far more fruity (and not a good fruity) than I expected so the meal
was so-so.
 |
| My lunch |
 |
| My lunch |
By the time I was done, it was close-ish to 1pm, so I figured I
could head over to the next sites and just take them veeeeeerrrry sloooooooowwwllly
in order to take up time.
The last two sites were located next to each
other and connected with a museum. I didn’t go into the museum (that would have
cost more), but I got to see some beautiful old carvings around the courtyard
that lead to the first of the two sites. From the courtyard, I then walked down
some stairs into the Basilica where the mosaics where.
Now this was an incredibly intimidating and
impressive church. It was slightly dark, very large (there was more than one
floor though you could only go into the ground floor), filled with arches, and
had darkly colored paintings on the ceiling on the walls. All this would have
been incredibly impressive on its own, but the mosaics covering the walls and
ceiling of the large area containing the alter were mind-blowing. The colors
were astounding, the scale was huge, and the details were amazing. It was very
easy to waste time just sitting in the pews and staring at it all. I don’t know
how I took pictures of all of it, but I definitely did and I loved some of the
details I noticed because of doing so.
After giving my mind enough time to put
itself back together while staring at the mosaics, I eventually got up to go to
the last site. Just outside from the Basilica was a mausoleum that was the last
site with mosaics. Although I didn’t enjoy the pictures and coloring as much in
this site as in some of the others, I absolutely adored the abstract design
that covered the ceiling of the entrance and pictures of what I think were deer
or moose on two of the walls.
 |
| Mosaics at the fifth site |
 |
| Mosaics at the fifth site |
After leaving these sites, I decided that I
really needed to find a bathroom. However, the closest free one that I knew of
was back at the first mosaic site…far away from my current location. I almost
made it back there, but ended up stopping in a café with a restroom 3/4ths of
the way there. In appreciation, I bought a chocolate filled croissant and a bag
of potato chips for 2 euros total (which was amazing considering how nice this
café looked).
From there, I had about three hours to kill,
so I decided to back track the route I had just walked since I had seen a
handful of open stores in my quick passing. I ended up going into every store
that I saw was open, though I only ended up trying on stuff at one store, Zara
(and I didn’t buy anything). Once I had walked almost the whole way back to the
museum, I stopped at a bench and just people watched while letting the
wonderful sun that had come out when I was at the Basilica just shine on me.
During this lovely sit, I eventually realized that I had no clue where my
umbrella was. So I went back to all of the stores, the café, and even the
Basilica and Mausoleum, but I didn’t find any trace of where my umbrella had
gone too (and I still have no clue). However, this search did kill a lot of
time so I eventually gave up, bought some food to go and walked back to the
station. As I write this, I am currently on the train from Bologna to Arezzo
(the train from Ravenna to Bologna went fine though it rained heavily during
that ride and I saw a lot of lighting…which was a little worrying since I was
sitting in a giant metal box) though I’m sure that when I post this it will be
much later.
Until next time!
Ciao!
No comments:
Post a Comment