Papal Audience, Castel S.Angelo, Pantheon, St Ignatius Church 10/1/2014
Papal Audience
We were up at 6:30 am to catch Metro to St Peters to meet our guide for Papal Audience.
When we got there, everywhere people were in long lines. It was overwhelming! We had directions that got us to the edge of St Peters but it was unclear exactly where our meeting point was. An intern with the tourist group doing our tour spotted us looking at maps. She asked what we were looking for. She brought us to the meeting point. We met a couple from England that we ended up sitting with. It was one big mob scene getting into the square. The guards took our water from our packs. These were two new jugs specially purchased for our trip, Caput!
My impressions of St Peters Square were mixed. It seemed smaller than I expected. Milly thought it what she expected. Maybe I didn’t realize that St Peter’s was nestled between a lot of rather huge buildings.
I enjoyed getting to see the Pope do his ride among the people. I don’t think one would enjoy being Pope. There were a huge number of people there all pressing to see or touch him. The whole square was full and this scene repeats every Wednesday.
The guide was very good at discussing where St Peter’s was and what was happening. She left as the Pope appeared. He spoke in Italian. Italians liked what he had to say. He even joked a few times. We listened to the laughter and wondered what he said. It was not a very spirit filled experience on the surface. It did impress you this vast array of people from all over the world, most of whom were Catholics.
I am glad I came to be at the papal audience. I am not sure I would come again. We did get a few views of the Pope. He really makes a few passes at various directions through the crowd. I am sure all got a glimpse of him at some point. Pope Francis is a great pope for the people and they know it.
Castel S.Angelo
We found out that there was a transit workers strike. It must have started at 9 am since we took the metro in the morning to go to St Peters. While waiting at the audience, we took out maps and planned to visit different sites than orginally planned. It turned out that the Hop on/off buses were running to our relief. The other buses appeared to start up again at 3 pm.
Castel S. Angelo was originally built by Andrian to be his tomb. The Christians turned it first into a fortress and then a home for the Popes before St Peter’s was built in 15th and 16th centuries. Thus, there was quite a set of history revealed in this Castle and museum. There were also excellent views of Rome.
Pantheon, Plaza Navona & St Ignatius Church
Our Hop Bus driver suggested we get to the Pantheon after visiting Plaza Navona for lunch. We has some pizza and salad at an excellent restaurant in he plaza. The music rang though the air as our waiter help us through the menu. Pizza was great!
We got lost looking for the Pantheon. It took us a long time to find it. A group of four helped us by walking us to the right place!.
The Pantheon is certainly a wonderful site and not to be missed.
A friend of ours suggested that we had to see St Ignatius Church. In June, he had found the church by accident and it was a hidden gem! This also attracted me since I was Jesuit trained in high school and college. What he found by accident took us a long, long time to find on purpose! We saw it on maps but we always seemed to get lost. Finally we did find it. It was indeed quite impressive.
After visiting the church, we headed home, took showers and Fred took a nap. We were exhausted. Fred took a nap before we went to dinner.
We found a small restaurant in a basement a few blocks away. We had no recommendations just a hunch. We had a variety of foods. Fred had spaghetti carbonara and veal steak while Milly opted for sliced pork with fried potatoes. We shared vegetables for starter and with our meal. We had trouble finishing he liter of house red wine that was very good.