Merry Christmas (or) Roman Holiday Part One

St. Peter's and a Christmas tree donated by Indonesia... Unexpected, eh?

We made it, and we made it back. Upon looking through the photos from our Christmas/Anniversary/Birthday/New Years excursion to Italy, I am stunned by the sheer mass of things we saw and did (and forgot about!).

This was one of my favorite statues that we saw in the vast Vatican Museum. The priest (center) is being held back by the gods because he is trying to warn the Trojans that letting the horse in is a bad idea... and therefore divert the fate set for the city. This is his punishment and his pain.

The internet here in Fez has been spotty, which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to do with the noisy construction that we returned home to. Workers are tearing out the road and replacing gigantic pipes in the street (2-foot-wide alley) behind us. At the same time, I've been seeing folks in blue lab jackets on ladders playing with power lines and, presumably, phone cables. Thus, these posts will be short. Consider it an effort to get something up before we have a communications blackout once again. (Today we had to climb over a pile of mud and rocks to get out of our house! But by the time we got back, the world was flat once again.) (PS: I don't think that was a pun about Galileo, whose museum we visited, but perhaps I should pretend that it was.)

After so many rooms and so many works of art, the world gets a bit dizzy.

Returning to Rome... I'm struck by the number of photos and stories we have of the Vatican. We made it back there more times than I had expected. My parents had told me that they went every day, and I was surprised. But we had more than enough reason to make the subway pilgrimage over and over again. This is partly due, of course, to our impeccable timing. And our absurdly inefficient efforts to see the vastness of what it has to offer. And Annie's last desire to get a rosary bracelet. I'm going to include mostly pictures here, simply implying the stories behind them. If you want to hear more, 'cause you're that kind of listener, you'll have to ask. Otherwise I'll get bogged down in the not-so-interesting details... (Like our Vatican Museum tour guide, who spent a half-hour in front of a TV screen talking about what we would see instead of showing us what was there!) So, here are some photos, and I'll try and post soon in an effort to embellish the rest of Rome.

Merry very belated Christmas to you all!

Michelangelo's Pieta at St. Peter's.

St. Peter at St. Peter's. After the museum, we took a short cut into the church. It was late, dark, and an impressive mix of massive and intimate. This was our first visit, we returned two or three more times after (and never had to wait in the long line!).