Ciao, Roma!

Tuesday morning we went back to Citta Del Vatiano, because, after coming home the previous night from the Vatican, we had discovered through Wikipedia that Pope John Paul II's tomb had been shifted from the Tomb of the Popes underneath St. Peters, into St. Peter's itself. Background: we were bitterly disappointed the previous day to be unable to find John Paul's tomb. This pope-shift was done recently in response to the hurried beatification that is being processed by the Church, in order to turn JP2 (or as Shannon refers to him, J2P2 - like the heroic droid from Star Wars) into a Saint. Shannon requested that we return to the Basilica in order to pay our respects properly, as we had spent an hour reading about the extraordinary life of John Paul and all he had accomplished, not only as the leader of the Catholic faith but as a global statesman and champion of peace.

The tombs in St. Peter's, in both the basilica and the Tomb of the Popes underneath, monuments to the various popes and saints ranged from grand to monumentally extraordinary. John Paul had requested the barest of graves, a simple white tombstone with his name and the year of his papacy. He had also requested to be buried in bare earth, and to not have any pomp nor circumstance attributed to his self. His request had initially been granted and he was laid in the Tomb underneath in a plain grave, however in response to his promotion to Sainthood he has since been shifted upstairs to the main arena. Though this is a move befitting the man, we were both disappointed that his wish had not been fully adhered to.

Side story: on lining up for entrance to the Vatican and the security screening, a Priest pushed in front of Shannon in the line. Shannon quickly responded "Well, that man is going straight to Hell". I figured that he probably had a good reason, like perhaps his Body of Christ communion wafer was getting cold.

Leaving the Vatican, we took a brief walk past Castel Sant Angelo, the fortress castle located just a short secret tunnel sprint away from the Vatican, which the popes had historically used as an exit and hidey-hole in times of invasion.

Side story fun fact: the reason the Swiss Guards have a permanent position as pope guards is because a few hundred years ago, while protecting the pope from an invading army, all the guards who remained in the Vatican to allow the pope time to run into the nearby Castel were tragically killed by the invaders. The only members of the guard who survived are those who ran with the pope as the last line of defence. For the sacrifice of all those from the guard who perished, the Swiss Guard have been the pope's bodyguards ever since.

We then walked to Spagna, Rome's expensive fashion district. We did a spot of shopping (sorry ma, no gifts from here!) before climbing the Spanish Steps on our way to Villa Borghese, a palace located in Rome's gigantic park, the Borghese Gardens (so named after the Roman noble family the Borgheses, who owned the land on which the Villa is located). The Villa serves as a well preserved bourgeois art gallery, with works from Caravaggio to Bernini set among the backdrop of a spectacularly decorated palace. It was quite beautiful.

We went for dinner at the same place that Shannon had ordered the gigantic calzone a few days earlier, and this time I ordered a gigantic pizza (and finished it, for those who were wondering). Shannon went for a Fettucine al ragu, and was disappointed when it was produced with green pasta. A few days earlier, Shannon had told me of her disgust with the green form of pasta and detailed a childhood of green-pasta refusal. Despite this, she assures me that it was still really good - she finished it, so she must not have been lying!

The next morning we had a Papal Audience booked. The Pope blesses pilgrims from all over the world each Wednesday in a gigantic auditorium inside Vatican City. Though we had to wait an hour and a half for Ratzy to show, he did, in his glistening white sundress and complementary Gucci red shoes.

I theorised that he wore the red shoes to make him feel as though he was only a short distance from his native Germany. All he would have to do is click his heels three times and repeat "there's no place like haus, there's no place like haus, there's no place like haus". Though most of the audience was in different languages, he spoke for a few minutes in English which was nice. Shannon and I were sitting behind a class of Italian children, two of which engaged in play fighting for the entire audience (much to the disgust of the Deutsch lady sitting beside us, who made physical contact with said bambinos on two occasions).

As I wrote the passage above, we were en route to Florence on the Frecciarosa Eurostar. Last night, we returned to a place I had dinner at when I was here two years earlier with the infamous Matthew Grahame Richard Bate, Esq, BPsychSc. It was still as awesome, massive meals for decent prices, and the same young waiter even served us.

Exploration of Florence tomorrow!

Zach & Shan