ROME (Day 3)

We had another morning walking tour beginning with St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs which is a church dedicated to the Christian martyrs, known and unknown, as well as Pope Pius IV, whose tomb is located here.

Next, we visited Santa Maria della Vittoria. The main attraction at this church is the masterpiece, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa by the famous sculptor, Bernini. The statue depicts a moment described by Saint Teresa of Avila in her autobiography, where she had the vivid vision of an angel piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her both immense joy and pain. Notice the flowing robes and contorted posture of St. Teresa which really portray the ecstasy she describes of.

Third on the agenda was the Capuchin Franciscan Boneyard Church where the bones of many Capuchin monks are arranged in different patterns such as cross, floral, arch, circle, and triangles of a six-roomed crypt. A large clock located in the last chamber represents the idea that time has no beginning or end. This was a pretty incredible work of art by an anonymous Capuchin. Some of the students thought it was pretty weird and rightly so, it’s not exactly normal. No doubt, it was pretty amazing though! It is said that the Capuchin monks fled to the Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception in Rome to escape the French Revolution.

The Spanish Steps were our next stop - the longest and widest staircase in Europe. It was built as a monument and named for the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See located in the piazza below.

A little ways from the Spanish Steps was the Trevi Fountain, the most famous and arguably the most beautiful fountain in all of Rome. This fountain was what people said looked beautiful at night and the one we thought we were seeing the day before, haha. This one really was amazing! ;)

Then we headed to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, translated as the Basilica of Saint Mary above Minerva. This church is one of the most important churches of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy and considered the only Gothic church in Rome. In it are the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena and the Dominican painter Fra Angelico. Also, the church contains the Cristo della Minerva, also known as Christ the Redeemer or Christ Carrying the Cross: a marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The first picture below is the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena and the second picture is Buonarroti's Christ Carrying the Cross:

The Pantheon was our next stop. Here's a blurb I found about it: “The Pantheon is a magnificent ancient temple in Rome that was later converted into the church of Santa Maria ad Martyrs. Dating from 125 AD, this is the most complete ancient building in Rome and one of the city's most spectacular sights. Until the 20th century, the Pantheon was the largest concrete structure in the world. Michelangelo studied its great dome before starting work on the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The Pantheon was dedicated to pan theos, ‘all the gods.’ When it became a church, it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs.”

Notice that hole at the top is completely open. It was raining, so the rain was coming through the hole and making a puddle in the inside. It looked really cool with the rain falling and the light shining through :)

Next we visited St. Agostino that had the tomb of St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine! It was SO awesome seeing all the tombs of great saints throughout history. It was a surprise every place we visited!

And also, the Madonna del Parto, translated, Our Lady of Childbirth, by Jacopo Sansovino

Finally, we visited Chiesa Luigi in Francese which translates to Church of St. Louis of the French. This church contains a number of paintings depicting the story of St. Matthew particularly, The Calling of St. Matthew by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

The tour was over about noon and Andrea, Terese and I took the metro to see the Church of St. Paul which was huge and has the images of the popes lining the ceiling:

This basilica also had St. Paul's chain of martyrdom:

We had a scheduled tour of the Vatican necropolis below St. Peter's basilica known as the Scavi tour at 2:30. We were told to be there at 2:10 and I figured 30 minutes would be enough time to get there by 2:10. Well, that was a fail. We left at 1:40 and sprinted the whole way there. We showed up 5 minutes before the tour was starting as our group was lining up to go. Andrea and I sprinted all the way up and as soon as I got in the gate, the Swiss guard told me my backpack was too big to take in... soo I was moved to the 2:45 tour. Terese had thought we had more time though so she said she would meet us there which caused her to be in even more of a time crunch! She showed up about 2:40 or so after sprinting too. So we were still in the same group together.

The Vatican necropolis, referred to as the Scavi, is the burial ground of mostly pagans from the Vatican area before St. Peter’s Basilica was built. It is located directly underneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Among the pagan tombs is the tomb of St. Peter as well as some of his bones which took extensive research and scientific testing before verifying them as truly the bones of St. Peter. His tomb is located directly beneath the altar of the basilica. To give you a feel for the atmosphere, the air was humid, dim lighting, and small, narrow passageways. Some of the objects can only be viewed one at a time – it’s a pretty amazing excavation site and the tour was extremely fascinating and well done!

After the tour at about 4:30, Terese and I headed out to see Tre Fontana where St. Paul was martyred. Well, the metro was a problem again because we thought we could get there before it was supposed to close at 6:00. Well about 5:15, we're sprinting through Rome again for the third time. We first went the wrong way and after asking three people at three different times for help we finally arrived at the church at about 5:40 - and the church was closed... we did everything we could to get in which included praying the rosary on our knees in front of the door. By the time it was 6:20, we really needed to leave in order to get back to dinner at the hotel at 7. We were super disappointed :/ but we can't expect everything to go perfectly. We got a ride with a sweet young Italian lady who was coming from praying in the other church nearby and she took us to the Marconi station (four stops closer to our destination) which was quite a blessing :) We finished our rosary on the metro back and found out dinner wasn't till 7:15. Yay!

ROME (Day 2)

We met in the morning at the Colosseum for an Ancient Rome / Early Christian Church tour. It was pouring down rain basically the whole tour and we ended up having to break up into two large groups without headsets since one of the three tour guides didn't show up and the headsets were late. So that made it three times harder to hear because of the huge group and the rain! First on the agenda was a brief history of the Colosseum.






The Colosseum was built in the 1st century AD and is probably the most famous landmark in Rome. It could seat 45,000 people and was the largest Roman amphitheater in the world. The most common events that took place here were the gladiatorial combats, fights and hunts with wild animals, re-enactments of famous battles, dramas based on Classical mythology and the possibly the execution of early Christians in addition to over 2,000 gladiators. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Colosseum has been believed to be a place of martyrdom and was therefore regarded as a sacred place. the Colosseum was also used as a Christian burial ground. Early Christian tombs have been found in three areas around the amphitheatre: in the foundations on the north and east sides and on the exterior ground near the present entrance. It is now preserved and taken care of by the Vatican.

The Arch of Constantine is located right near the Colosseum and is a large triumphal arch representing the victory of the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD of the Emperor Constantine over Maxentius.



Contemporary historians have recorded that the night before the battle Constantine had a vision. He saw the symbol of chi-rho (the first letters of "Christ" in Greek), or the cross in some accounts, in the sky with the words, "By this sign, conquer."

Constantine was desperate at this point and led his men into battle with the sign of Christ on their battle shields. This event is highly important in Christianity since this defeat caused Constantine to convert to Christianity, thereby ending Christian persecution and jumpstarting the development of Christendom. The event is commemorated by this Arch which represents the major turning point in the history of the western world.

We also saw ruins of a previous gladiator training school which was located just across the street from the Colosseum. Here’s a little blurb I found about these training schools, “Gladiators were trained at special schools originally owned by private citizens, but later taken over by the imperial state to prevent the build-up of a private army. Gladiators trained like true athletes, much like professional athletes do today. They received medical attention and three meals a day. Their training included learning how to use various weapons, including the war chain, net, trident, dagger, and lasso.”






Then we visited the Basilica of St. Clemente and toured the underground where the original church once was.



Then we visited the church with St. Peter's martyrdom chain and I think the part of the pillar where Jesus was scouraged was at this same church, but I'm not entirely sure about that.







Then we visited Santa Maria Maggiore church with part of the Jesus' manger during the Nativity:



It's that little piece of wood underneath the gold and silver covering... it's a little hard to see but it's there :)
This is also the church where the name, Our Lady of Snows comes from. I made it a point to remember this since there's a church in Leavenworth named Our Lady of Snows and we go there when we visit my uncle and his family in the mountains :)

The story of Our Lady of the Snow could be part legend but no doubt could have truth to it. Our Lady of the Snow commemorates the dedication of the Church of St. Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore) on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. An old Roman legend speaks of John and his wife who were both childless. They asked the Blessed Virgin Mary to make an heir known to them, someone to whom they could will all their possessions. On the night of August 4 or 5, Our Lady appeared to them in a dream and asked if they would build a church, on the Esquiline Hill (one of the seven hills in Rome). They were to find the exact spot for its location the next morning, outlined in snow. The same night Pope Liberius also had a dream by Our Lady who directed him to the same location on the Esquiline Hill. Both parties met at this spot which was marked by freshly fallen snow... on a hot August day. A basilica was completed within two year’s time. During the feast day Mass on August 5th every year, white rose petals fall from the basilica’s ceiling in honor of Our Blessed Mother. The ivory petals are a remembrance of the miraculous snowfall that graced Esquiline hill with Santa Maria Maggiore church.

The tour was officially finished about noon and Andrea and I went on the hunt for some lunch and then we went to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel for the afternoon. We got there about 1:45 and completely missed the usual huge lines which we found out die down between 1 and 2 so we were SO blessed! We heard most people were standing in line for 45 minutes to an hour while we just walked right in. We really enjoyed the museum and ended up losing track of time.







Someone was smart ;)



Sistine Chapel: Last Judgment by Michelangelo



Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

It was 3:50 before we had even gotten to the Sistine Chapel and we were supposed to be to mass at 4:30, two metro lines away. Well, we thought we could do it and after seeing the Sistine Chapel we began to head out but the museum kind of just kept going. When we finally got out we began running since by that time mass was starting in 15 minutes. I don't know what we were thinking but it was definitely 4:30 and we were still on the line A of the metro with five stops left to go and still having to transfer to line B... we gave up since obviously there was no way we would be there on time. We stopped to see the Fontana del Tritone which we heard was a beautiful fountain especially at night. Well, when we saw it, it wasn't interesting at all... turns out later we didn't actually see the Fontana del Tritone but this other random and obviously insignificant one :P We went to St. Peter's Square after and went searching for Soprani's Religious Goods store known for great quality and cheap prices. We stopped there for the rest of our free time and were back just in time for dinner at 7. Dinner is such an important event everywhere in Europe that it cut into our holy hour every night, which was supposed to start at 8:30. So this night's holy hour was definitely cut into a holy half-hour :P

ROME (Day 1)

And we finally get to Rome: the climax of our semester in Europe!

It was just Sarah and I on our first morning in Rome, and here's the beautiful view we see upon arriving! We got up early to visit the Tombs of the Popes and to climb the Cupola in St. Peter's.

The tombs are located beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, and this is where most of the popes throughout the history of the church including Pope John Paul II are buried. I was expecting to see John Paul II’s tomb so that wasn’t a surprise, but then I turned the corner to see the elaborate tomb of St. Peter, which I completely forgot was there until I saw it... sending chills down my spine and remembering… of course, out of all the things about Rome and the Vatican, I should have gone in expecting to see St. Peter’s tomb! Here is the altar known as Bernini's canopy which is at the center of the basilica and located right above St. Peter's tomb:

(the rest of the tombs must be seen by going down into the lower level)

“Cupola” is a term used in architecture that defines a dome-like structure on the top of a building. The cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the largest domes in the world. The first flight of stairs takes you to the a balcony that overlooks St. Peter’s interior. In the above picture you can kind of see the dome above the canopy and then here is the view we saw from above:

The second flight of stairs which was narrow and slanted led up through the dome to the very top and to the spectacular view of Rome from all around. It was a pretty strenuous and long walk up but extremely rewarding standing hundreds of feet in the air, on one of the largest domes in the world, on THE largest church in the world, in the heart of the universal church at the Vatican in Rome, on a gorgeous day with an incredible view… and knowing you walked all the way up, to get there… it was pretty good feeling :)

We were kind of running down the stairs to get to mass on time... We got there just in time to Sunday mass at 10:30 at St. Peter's Basilica in Latin! We picked up lunch after mass with Steve, Perry, Brooke and Sarah (Andrea joined us later).

We ran into some Franciscan students who had met two seminarians who I think were both from Ohio and who were studying in Rome. They walked us around and gave us some cool facts about Rome... They were awesome guys! :) They made sure we were back to the basilica by 1:45 for a short 1-hour tour of St. Peter's Basilica from another seminarian. Sarah, Andrea and I began walking back to the hotel about 3:30, stopped for gelato at the famous Old Bridge Gelato Shop (massive amounts of gelato for only  €2)! Our feet were killing us so we rested back at the hotel till dinner at 7. We had a holy hour at Suore Riparatrici del Sacro Cuore Mother House Church which translates to Institute of Sisters of Reparation of the Sacred Heart just down the street from the hotel  :)

Florence

We woke up in the morning and I washed Andrea's hair for her and our friend Perry made scrambled eggs for whoever wanted them in the morning :) we started our day at 9:30 and at this point our huge group broke up and I hung out with Lydia and Terese for the day. We started to hit the stops I wrote down from the Europe book but most everything cost money so since we weren't sure how much other places would cost, we prioritized our options and just followed our map to the next destination :) while we were walking and looking at the shops we passed all the leather jackets which were a pretty big temptation until we were sucked into a leather store and this guy was so persistent, he asked us what colors we liked and found us some jackets and helped us put them on and everything. After the whole experience I was thankful since I really didn't think the leather jacket was my style but we told him our budget was €20 not because we actually thought we could get a jacket for that much, but to simply show the fact we were broke college students, but the lowest was definitely about €100 and that's when we left. I felt bad but there was just no way! Here's the Duomo cathedral which dominates the heart of Florence with its huge dome:

We really wanted to go up into the dome but the cost was a bit unreasonable so we were a little bummed, but it all worked out great because we ended up getting to go into St. Peter's Basilica dome which was cheaper and way more worth it anyway. After the Duomo we went to find the Galleria dell' Accademia and saw Michelangelo's famous "David." We found a sweet little church to pray in on our way to the Piazza della Signoria and there we saw a replica of Michelangelo's "Victory" statue and the "David." We picked up some pizza for lunch and ate outside in the sun :) We walked alongside the river on the way to the Basilica di Santa Croce.

At the Basilica we saw the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo!

Then we walked to the Ponte Vecchio which means "old bridge." This bridge is the oldest surviving bridge in the city and the only one to escape destruction during World War II.

We stopped for dinner and gelato on our way to the train station. Trains to Rome left every 30 minutes were almost to the train station at 6:00. We had been taking our time until we looked at the clock and had 10 minutes to catch the 6:10 train if we wanted. It obviously wouldn't have been a big deal if we missed it since another one was coming in 30 minutes but Terese and I thought we could maybe catch it. So we started sprinting. Lydia wasn't so keen about the idea so we let her walk since we still needed to get tickets and pick up our luggage. Terese ran to the ticket machine while I ran to get our luggage. We definitely missed the 6:10 train since the ticket machine was being a pain haha but it was fun anyway and not stressful at all since it wasn't like the last train or anything ;) We met three Spanish ladies from Venezuela who were sisters and were spending their vacation in Italy on the train and Terese, being the brave girl she is, asked them if they would pray a rosary with us, and we offered to say it in Spanish with them! Both Terese and I learned the Hail Mary and Our Father in Spanish, except both of us couldn't really remember the Our Father but it was really fun and they just loved us and we loved them too! We arrived to our hotel in Rome at 8:30ish and just relaxed for the evening :) 



Pisa

Classes were out for 10-day break on Thursday, but the official itinerary for our Rome and Assisi trip began on Sunday morning so we had two days of our own time to go where we wanted. It was difficult to plan a trip when we were so focused on studying for our final nursing exam though so we joined a big group going to Florence and Pisa!

There were 17 of us in this group which was huge but SO much fun. The plans were made with the expectation that smaller groups would form but we actually all did the exact same thing until the second day when we ended up breaking into smaller groups.

We left Thursday night as usual but didn't get on our night train until 1:30am from Salzburg to Venice, Italy. During the train ride I borrowed a Europe book from one of the girls and took notes about main attractions in Florence. It was very handy while we were traveling Florence on Saturday! We arrived in Florence at 10:30am and we walked straight to a hostel that we managed to get rooms for everyone for only €16 (regularly €24). I was a follower pretty much all day Friday so I don't know how it happened but it was definitely a blessing. We settled into our hostel and caught a short 1 hour train ride to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower. We picked up food as we were walking to the Tower and I ordered pizza that unbeknownst to me had anchovies. It was possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten, I almost couldn't finish it. I'm not very picky when it comes to pizza and toppings but I will never eat pizza with anchovies again.
When we got to the Leaning Tower, we took pictures, looked at the souvenir shops along the road, laid in the grass, saw the Duomo di Pisa

At five we started walking back to the train station. We stopped by the supermarket when we got back to Florence and picked up spaghetti noodles and sauce for dinner. Having 17 people made doing things really easy since people could just take turns with jobs. Two of our friends worked so hard to make dinner and we had a big dinner party all together at the hostel! We had a whole floor to ourselves with four bedrooms and the kitchen so it was a ton of fun :)