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.
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