A Pope-less Vatican

     Friday was a day of mourning, but not for us.  Friday was the first day of Pope Benedict's retirement, and  I'm sure there was much mourning in Vatican City. (The ex-Pope was probably pretty pleased, though.)  I wasn't sure what to expect after such an upheaval, but it turned out that more policemen are the answer to every difficult situation, and the day proceeded quite nicely.  I did, however, see an unusual number of priests, nuns, and even monks (complete with rope belt! I was so excited) headed to church to pray.

    We made it to the Vatican, picked up our exorbitantly-priced tickets, and headed inside.  Because we had booked our tickets online, we got to skip all the queues.  There is nothing more gleefully satisfying than waltzing past six hundred people in line and heading straight for the door; you can almost feel the hate singeing your clothes.  I've never managed to incur the wrath of so many people at once, but I'm starting to think it's not so bad after all.

   It turns out that the Vatican  is enormous.  I mean, I knew that, but I figured the Pope would have at least half the building to himself.  Nope.  The Vatican is filled to the brim with art galleries, statue collections, and art, art, art.  You can't escape it, even if you try--long after we wanted to be gone, we were speed-walking through galleries with paintings by Michelangelo and Raphael because that was the only way to the exit.  One of the first places you see, however, is a large courtyard with a Sphere within a Sphere statue, just like in Trinity.

Next you head into a gallery of statues.  Here is where my Roman Art & Architecture class came in handy; I could actually recognize emperors! It's unexpectedly gratifying to look at a 2,000-year-old bust, think you know the face, and then BAM, you're actually right.  This gallery was quite interesting in that the Popes did not think nudity was seemly, but the Romans pretty much only carved naked guys.  The popes came up with an interesting solution--they plastered fig leaves on the most famous statues in the world, and painted the leaves marble-y to try to match. They did not quite succeed. Some later popes, instead of fig leaves, knocked off the offending parts altogether, rendering the poor men almost comical-looking.

The emperor Tiberius.

The Belvedere Apollo.

A very large bathtub.

The famous statue of Lacoon.  When Lacoon, a Trojan priest, tried to warn the Trojans against taking the wooden horse, Athena and Poseiden (who favored the Greeks) sent two serpents to kill him and his two young sons.

Bronze statue of Achilles.

Emperor Trajan as Pontifus Maximus. This was the first time that the head of state and the head of the church were combined; the combination represented the most formidable amount of power.

A statue of Athena with ether many overlapping breasts, or many overlapping bulls' testicles. I'm not sure which option I prefer.

We wandered into many beautiful rooms with many beautiful paintings and statues, but by then I was so tired of art that I didn't properly appreciate it.  I kept secretly hoping that I'd catch a glimpse of ex-Pope Benedict lurking behind some columns, but alas, he never showed himself.

Modern art.

We can do modern art too!

The steering wheel of one of the pope-mobiles, but I'm pretty sure it's actually a video game controller.

Pope John Paul II, and a koala.

I saw the Sistine Chapel, but (not surprisingly) was not allowed to take pictures.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was almost disappointing.  After seeing all the beautiful frescoes in Florence, I'm not sure what made it quite so special.  Yes, it was lovely and gorgeous, but I don't know why it is so much more important or beautiful than other ones.  Perhaps this is a sign that I have not yet learned to truly appreciate art.

We then visited Saint Peter's Square and the Basilica, where most of the popes are buried.

A Pope's resting place. They were all decorated with elaborate statues, except for Pope John Paul II's--perhaps because he was the most recently buried? I'm not sure.

The coffin of Pope John Paul II.

Interestingly enough, this bronze arch was made entirely from bronze stolen from the roof of the Pantheon.

St. Peter's Square.

The Swiss Pontifical Guard.  They have the most ridiculous outfits, apparently designed by Michelangelo, that feature orange and blue stripes.  Of course, without a pope in residence, they were completely irrelevant, but fun to look at nonetheless.

At this point, I became famous.  Sort of.  There was a group of people singing songs and (I think) saying the Hail Mary in many different languages, and a film crew was filming them.  At one point, the video guy turned around and started filming the audience. So if you're ever looking at a Vatican TV episode from March 1 and see a rather bored-looking watching some out-of-tune people sing some Catholic songs, the bored-looking girl was me.

After our exhausting day at the Vatican, we got (what else?) gelato on the way home, packed our things, and hit the hay. The early morning flight back to Dublin was crowded, but I sat back and relaxed at the flight attendant's command and things were alright.  I got home at 3pm, went straight to bed, and woke up at 6am the next morning--a full 15 hours of sleep, a new record for me. And thus our Italian adventure was complete.