After walking through the Jubilee Door at St. Peter's Basilica (and having all his sins forgiven) and learning that there were 4 more Jubilee doors at the 4 main churches in Rome, Taylor decided that we needed to make a tour of church since we didn't have a tour planned until the evening. So off we went, partly to souvenir shop but mostly to visit churches. Taylor started by saying we were just going to 4 major but then he couldn't resist stopping in to see each and every church we passed. In other cities that would be fine, but there are more than 900 Catholic churches in Rome itself so literally every time we turned a corner, there were 2 or 3 more churches to check out .
And not a single one was a quick stop. Seriously. Not a single one didn't have floors of intricate inlaid marble patterns and ceilings of carvings or painting and statues and stained glass saints and popes buried in them. This is some statue by a famous sculptor but there were just too many to keep them all straight.
This is Michelangelo's Moses statue and required a large detour to actually find the right church since there were so many in the area.
And then we also learned that some of the church have ancient relics. These for instance are the chains that held Peter.
And we began to notice other slightly gruesome artwork.
Angel of death anyone?
Churches everywhere.
And tall obelisks in front of them too.
One of the churches has giant marble statues of each of the apostles holding the way they'd been killed. This poor one was flayed alive so of course he's holding his skin and you can even see his face in the stretched out upside down skin.
Sawn asunder. Yep, he gets to hold that giant saw.
I did take about a million pictures.
Crucified on this strange X shaped cross.
And who knew that in one of the churches in Rome there's the actual original manger. Yes, the original. I'm being a little skeptical here. I do believe that they could have saved the actual chains or bones or many things really, but the actual wooden manger that Jesus slept in? Come on, it was wooden first of all, a food trough for animals, and Mary and Joseph shortly thereafter fled into Egypt. It wasn't an heirloom cradle they'd constructed and would have saved. Taylor accused me of having a bad attitude. This was of course after walking to and into about 25 churches in just 4 hours. Blood sugar was dipping and it was time for more pizza and gelato.
This church we almost missed and Taylor would have been sad. See those people crawling up the steps on their knees? Yes, you heard that right. These are the actual marble steps that used to be on Pontius Pilate's palace in Jerusalem. Ok so I can believe that. Apparently Constantine's mother, after he was converted, made a gift of having these stones removed from the Roman palace in Jerusalem (which Rome controlled after sacking it) and transported to Rome. Christ is supposed to have walked up and down them several times the day he was crucified. That I can believe would survive and that Constantine's mother would have the power to order them moved.
Another neat historical piece is that Martin Luther climbed these steps in the 1500's, on his knees (that's the only way you can go up them even today) and heard a voice telling his to live by Faith instead of works.
All morning and afternoon we spent walking Rome and exploring churches. Finally after hitting 3 of the 4 major churches, Taylor gave up and we took a taxi to the 4th. In fairness it's called "St. Paul outside the Wall" and it is truly WAY outside the walls of Rome. I mean 15 minutes drive outside so it's good we didn't try to walk. And unfortunately because it was outside, it got destroyed several times throughout history and had to be rebuilt and just isn't as old or ornate. Still neat though.
Not sure who, but one of the apostles is buried here. There are a lot of reasons to believe they know where people are buried. For instance, St. Peter's Basilica is built right on top of an old Roman Circus where not only were chariots raced and animals and gladiators fought, but political prisoners (Christians quite often) were publicly executed to set an example. So they know where Peter was crucified and can infer where he was buried (in the graves close by) and then the Basilica is built right on top.
Wednesday night Taylor had booked a Segway tour for us. He has wanted to ride a Segway for FOREVER. Literally. I even booked a Segway tour of DC once but then it didn't work out and we've just never done it. So when he spotted someone riding a Segway around Rome he tracked down where we could do it ourselves.
We spent a little time learning how to ride them and actually they weren't too hard. Truthfully all you have to do is pretend your confident and let your mind tell your body to lean instead of walk and not freak out. When you get startled and freak out, that's when it becomes a problem.
Taylor booked us on a night tour which was amazingly perfect. It was less crowded, cooler and not in the sun, and super fun to have more space to zip around the streets.
Seriously. We're at the Piazza Navona and she gave us 10 minutes to just race each other around the closed off streets. Super fun.
There was just one other guy with us on our tour and Taylor is going to follow his example every time we travel now. He always books a Segway tour for the evening that he first arrives. There are 2 benefits to this. It forces him to stay awake and get on the local time and also it helps him orient himself to the city and he gets tips from the local guide on where to eat and what to see. Brilliant actually and all while riding a fun toy.
We finally headed out to the Spanish Steps. This was one of the sights I had planned to visit but it was just too far of a walk from our bed and breakfast and not really close to anything else, except a metro stop. But truthfully we didn't once ride a bus or the metro and only took a cab to the soccer game and St. Pauls way out of town. It was so nice to walk to everything from our home. And the Spanish steps were being refurbished so in the end I'm glad we didn't venture out here on our own.
And to end the night just right we saw a motorcade with the Pope and all his security. At least that's what we're assuming. There were lots of motorcycle cops blocking the streets and armored SUVs and then a small (and I'm assuming armored) car flying the Vatican flag.
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