Rome: The Vatican and Trestavere

origamiunicorn ♦ August 6, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

Sarah booked tickets for us on a breakfast tour of the Vatican. It was supposed to include a walk through the Sistine Chapel before it opened to the public in the morning, but tour was changed to have the breakfast first. We took a cab to Vatican City, met up with our guide, Uta, and went for a breakfast buffet.

For the first time in the trip, we saw rain. The oppressive heat dissipated and despite getting drizzled on, the raindrops felt refreshing. The grey sky against the classic buildings and the wet cobblestones gave me another perspective of Rome, maybe even more lovely than Rome in the sunshine.

After breakfast we toured the Vatican museum and Uta gave us some history and pointed out the different buildings on the grounds.

Heading into the Sistine Chapel, Uta gave us a handout that showed the layout of Michaelangelo’s artwork and talked through what we were going to see in the Sistine chapel. It was good to get the information ahead of time because there is no talking allowed in the Chapel (also no picture taking). It was very crowded inside, but since most of the artwork people were there to see is on the ceiling, the crowds were not much of a problem.

There is a whole lot to look at there. I focused on a few specific areas. Almost all of the pictures on the ceiling are biblical in nature, but there are four sections with paintings of Sybils, The Sybils are oracles from Greek mythology, definitely not Judeo-Christian. I was also particularly interested because they are all female, and because we had just visited Delphi a few days earlier and learned about the Sybils there.

After the Sistine Chapel, we toured the apartments of the prior popes. Those rooms now house modern art collections with works by Marc Chagall and Ben Shahn. From there we went to St Peter’s Basilica, one of the largest cathedrals in the world. The interior is absolutely stunning, but the highlight for me was seeing the Pieta.

I am not a Christian but I appreciate the teachings of Jesus and what an incredible, compassionate, selfless man he was and the pain of his death in his followers and his mother. The sculpture of a mother holding her dead son, the tragedy, the significance, told by one of the greatest artists – I was moved to tears. I didn’t take
a photograph because I didn’t feel like I could do it justice from behind the plexiglass (several years ago someone tried to destroy the sculpture with a hammer). This is a photo from michaelangelo-gallery.com.

We toured around the entire church and then I returned to spend more time at the Pieta.
The tour was over at this point, but we were free to stay as long as we wanted. We bought tickets to climb to the top of the dome. It was not quite as thrilling as Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, but we were also able tonwalk around the middle, up close to the mosaics, and the cupola on top had spectacular views of Rome.

From the Vatican, we walked to a restaurant that Sarah’s friend had recommended, Trattoria Lilli. We each had delicious meals. Mine was Ravioli di ricotta e spinach, con burro e salvia, i.e., ricotta and spinach ravioli with butter and sage. The sage was fresh and almost spicy and the ravioli was perfect.

We decided to split up after lunch. Sarah wanted to visit a museum of Capuchin monks. I wanted to take a short nap. We met back at the apartment late afternoon and walked across the river to an area of Rome called Trestavere. To get there, we walked through the Jewish Ghetto area to the turtle fountain. Stay tuned for a separate blog post about the ghetto. We crossed the river right around sunset and got a spectacular view.

In Trestavere, we tried to find a bakery that had been recommended, but when we found it, there was a sign in front that it was closed until the fall. We switched gears and instead went to another restaurant that Sarah’s friend suggested, Trattoria da Teo. I felt like I’d had enough pasta for awhile so I ordered tuna with tomatoes and arugula. The fish was cooked perfectly, seared on the outside, raw on the inside.

We had another morning tour scheduled so we called it a night after dinner.