Gap Year '08: Flashback: Day 4 (Rome, Vatican City)

Time to revel in gorgeous, unforgettable Italian holiday snaps. :) Proudly presenting:

After I Went to the Big Museum

:P

This is the afternoon after Dad and I emerged, dazed, from the Vatican. First stop: St Peter's!

Vatican Guard. Jessie, this is especially for you (and I apologise for missing the Swiss ones).

Just down the road from the Museum, on the Via di Porta Angelica, inside the Vatican City. The columns you can see are part of the border of the Square of St Peter.

St Peter's! Up close, it's a breath-taking sight. The camera can't capture this, but the sheer scale and openess of the square itself is amazing - it feels as if you're standing in the middle of infinite space.

Part of the colonnade that almost completely encloses the piazza (is it still a square if it's a circle?), topped with statues of the saints. This was designed by Bernini, though the dome was Michaelangelo's.

Central fountain, built to the plan of Carlo Moderno in the 17th century.

Beatiful Italian stonework. :)

What was I saying about the scale of this place?

And now, for a wander out from the Vatican and through the streets of Rome...

Maybe I should have edited the shots of architecture a little more, but... Well, what can I say? Constant beauty, and a digital camera. :P

Inside the Santa Maria degli Angeli (Saint Mary of the Angels), an immense basilica designed by Michaelangelo and built within the walls of the old Roman Baths of Diocletian. It seems a vast cavern, filled with the echoes of footsteps and the occasional (and strangely faint) call to worship. There's something raw about this place: it's much less richly decorated than many others we saw, disconcerting, oppressive, and somehow more majestic. As a way to show the immensity and grandeur of a divine being, it's hard to fault, but this place... It seems bigger than that, somehow.

Obviously, in a totally incomprehensible and inexpressible way. ^^

The meridian line, included at the order of Pope Clement IX at the beginning of the 18th century, which is used to measure time. At solstice and equinox, sunlight enters through a small hole in the church's wall and hits the tile on precise marks.

Now this is the grand organ. According to my painstaking calculations, it's just under the height of a three-storey building.

Yay! Ruins! These are part of the original Baths of Diocletian, reinforced with modern construction (the Roman parts, Dad told me, can be recognised by much more narrow bricks). Not to mention looking old, but there you go. :P

Pictures of Italian street life.

Now, this I can't go past. Ignore the fact that it's upside down (go with me for a second) - this is the mark of the city government. The initials stand for 'Senatus Populusque Romanus' (the Senate and the People of Rome), and... Ah, I'm not getting this out right, but: they're the same words, the same exactly, as were used during the time of the Roman Empire. They're 2000 years old. The heritage, the importance and the power of this just amazes me. To have such a connection to the lives and ideals of people that lived so long ago... It's beautiful. Unbelievable, and beautiful.