Have been trying to think of a way to list all the stuff we did and saw without droning on forever about how great it was, so decided to just list them out with selected pithy comments. Today's installment...Rome.
- Churches. We saw a ton, I'd say to the point of too many to really appreciate them individually by the end of the week. It became a running gag that if the kids behaved, we'd get them ice cream, and if they didn't, we would take them to another church. That later developed into a threat to take them to another church museum bookstore. You really can't walk more than a block without seeing one and they are all in pristine condition and are quite impressive. Some that were more memorable...San Giovanni in Laterano...first Catholic church in Rome, original location but rebuilt several times and the original home of the papacy. Gesu, the oldest Jesuit church and one of the few built in Baroque design. And San Clemente was a fairly normal looking church (built in the 12th century) on top, but was built on the still visible remains of a 4th century church, which itself was built on top of even more ancient Roman remains including a temple of Mithras. Was not only cool going under street level 40 feet and seeing some pre-Christian religious sites, but you could also see (and feel and splash on each other) a bit of the underground streams that are part of the significant subterranean river system that is under Rome and was a big part as to why it became such a large center of culture in pre-BC.
- By far the most amazing religious site was Vatican City. St. Peters Church is one everyone sees on TV and pictures, but (as with a lot of the stuff we saw) is impossible to really feel how immense it is until you are standing in the plaza outside, or inside staring up and the massive dome. Not only is it incredibly large, but the attention to detail of sculpture, mosaics, light, art, etc. in every inch of the place is hard to describe and impossible to capture on film although we tried
No comments:
Post a Comment