Michaelangelo - Why is it taking so long?
Up at 7am for an early start today. Fiona has got my bug well and truely now and is suffering. I'm giving her heaps of sympathy.
Our continental breakfast is a pastrie and a cup of coffee at a small cafe around the corner - it didn't even tickle the sides on the way down.
We caught the train to the Coloseum and was there about 15 minutes before it opened. There was hardly a queue to speak of. The place is huge! There is 3 levels of seating from senators closest to the action, followed by knights and prominent citizens, followed by the riff-raff in the cheap seats up the top.Of course the women were segregated in a section to themselves.
Much of the demolished part of the staidum was either due to earthquake damage or the fact that the Romans themselves plundered the building to make their new monuments, statues and palazzas.
The floor was covered with sand during the battles to prevent slipping and soak up the blood. Sand comes from the word arena and is were we get the name for a playing field from! I took a million pictures and we were finished in about an hour and a bit.
We walked across the road to the Roman Forum. Lot's of ruins here from early on, over a huge area. We walked and looked, looked and walked - let's face it - if the Romans were any good, the building would still be standing now!
At about 12:00 we decided to leave the ruins of the Roman Forum and go to the ruins of the Caracalla Baths. As we entered we got a light lunch. Fiona was not feeling that great but was battling on. The original building would have been very impressive with hot spas, warm baths, cold baths, an olympic size swimming pool and two gymnasiums. But what can I say - they were ruins, big ruins and reasonably impressive but ruins none the less. I took a million pictures and we were in and out in less than an hour.
We then decided to go to Castel St Angelo. When we got off the train we got a galati and changed our minds. We decided to go to the Vatican Museum instead.
This ended up being a good idea because this was also how you get to see the Sistine Chappell - something we were both very keen to do.
The Vatican Museum is full of.........everything! Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, Egyption artifacts, and all manner of holy "stuff". The "Map Room" was amazing (see picture). The room was about 100 meters long. Along both sides of the wall was patined different regions of the known world. The roof was simply stunning as one continuous mural along the whole 100 meters.
There were signs everywhere as we progressed through the museum that we were heading towards the Sistine Chappell. Nothing like building the suspense. We went through about 4 rooms that weref illed with murals from Raphael - all stunning. Infact most of the place was awesome. The modern art section was a little outside our tastes with artists like Salvador Dali, but, to each his own.
Finally we reached the Sistine Chappell. As you would expect people had moved through the museum and gathered here so it was quite crowded - it would be absolutely packed in the middle of summer.
We sat and looked at the ceiling for about half an hour. Well, Ilooked at the ceiling and Fiona tried not to fall asleep - she really is feeling poorly, I'll have to get her more drugs! I had hired an audio guide and listened to the discriptions of the artwork. It took Michaelangelo 4 years to complete the ceiling work. I was taking photos of the wall at one end and was told "NO PHOTOS". This surprised me since we were allowed to take photos everywhere else. I think I took two million photos in the museum!
Eventually we had to leave before Fiona fell asleep and I was feeling light headed myself although I couldn't work out why. Then it dawned on me - I had only had one pastrie and one gelati for the day - I was suffering sugar withdrawl!!! On the way home we stopped to buy some soap ...and some Mars Bars .....and some Pringles - that took the edge off my hunger!
Fiona dozed for a bit had a shower and is now feeling fit for a feast. I'm not that hungry for some reason!
Cheers!
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