Ciao!
This week was a little on the slow side compared to the others... but being able to rest after Cinque Terre and before Spring Break (which officially starts today) has been great!
Tuesday, we went back to St. Peter's Basilica but this time had a tour of the actual church and the Vatican museums. The beautiful, Susanna, knows so much about the Basilica and the details inside. Michelangelo's
Pieta and Bernini's alter are amazing... unfortunately, the Pieta is now behind glass because some meanie tried to ruin it! Sad! I also got a few pictures of the Sistine Chapel [even though they say you can't- everyone does]... I still haven't figured out how Michelangelo managed to paint the entire ceiling. The stories and placement are amazing...
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| Basilica Gardens |
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| So many paintings in the museum. |
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| The museum ceiling... the walls are lined with hand woven blankets of places in Italy. So cool. |
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| I love the detail and color in the ceilings. |
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| Famous painting by Raphael. He painted himself and Michelangelo in it... [Michelangelo is the guy in purple and brown on the left bottom step] |
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| The Sistine Chapel Ceiling!! |
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| Sistine Chapel- Last Judgement Wall. |
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| The most famous piece... [God giving life to Adam] |
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| The entire room. Incredible!! |
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| The Last Supper |
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| Michelangelo's, Pieta, so amazing how he makes Jesus truly look dead on Mary's lap... from stone!!! |
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| The Basilica is HUGE. |
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| The "paintings" are all mosaics!!!!! You can barely tell. SO TINY. So cool. |
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| You can see down to the Necropolis where we went before! |
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| The very intense alter by Bernini. |
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| Alter and Dome |
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| Gold work also done by Bernini, so beautiful. |
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| Can you imagine coming to mass here? haha |
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| Alexander CHIGI'S tomb with symbol in the Basilica! |
Thursday, Francesco, gave us a tour of 5 churches in Rome and the Borghese Gallery. Even though all the churches we have seen are starting to blend together, each one is a little bit different and uniquely beautiful. You are not allowed to take pictures in the Borghese Galley but I saw my favorite sculpture there... "The Rape of Proserpina" by Bernini... of course! It was incredible. Bernini made the people look SO real. I took these pictures from the internet to show you better...
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| If you look closely, his right eye looks like it is actually being stretched out by her hand! |
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| The most amazing detial to me was where his hand is on her leg, you can see the actual indentions, just as if it were skin!! How can you do that to stone!? Blows my mind! |
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| 1 of the 5 churches! [my favorite] |
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| The most amazing painting on a ceiling that I have seen [besides the Sistine Chapel]. The angels look like they are literally floating around up there. |
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| He painted shadows in order to give it a 3D appearance! |
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| There was a mirror that reflected it so you could see it better! |
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| The Dome. |
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| An adorable elephant with the CHIGI symbol on it by Bernini! A little known fact is that the trunk is rather long because Bernini had never seen an elephant when it was sculpted so he was basically guessing! Did much better than I would have and I have seen plenty! haha |
On a different note...
MATT has safely arrived in PARIS!! Insert HUGE smile here. I cannot tell you how anxious I am to see him! This is his first time leaving the country so he is a big boy now flying alone and staying alone 1 day and night! Yay Matty!
The rest of us here, fly to Paris very early in the morning because flights were way cheaper on Saturday than Friday! The group is 8 Chigi Princesses, Matt, and Mary Cate's brother, Tommy. We will be in Paris from the 12th-14th... London from the 14th-17th... and back to Rome from 17th-19th... and we are so pumped. It will be fun to be able to show Matt around Rome, like I did with Mom, Em, and Mrs. Dalziel. I am surprised I haven't been offered an official tour guide job by now :)
If anyone is an expert on Paris or London or has any advice, please leave a comment! We want to do as much as possible!
Oh yeah... and we are flying Ryanair and Easyjet... if you haven't heard of these, they are very small, cheap flights in Europe... but this disadvantage is they have lame rules! First of all, checking any bag costs extra (so of course, trying to save money, I am not) but their carry on requirements are a little on the small side. Okay, very small side. You can only have ONE bag [meaning any purse, camera, etc has to fit in your actual bag] and it has to be less than 10 kg [about 22 lbs] and smaller than 21x15x7 inches. This is tiny! Buttt by a miracle.. I have succeeded! Take that Ryanair! As the title explain... I have everything I need for 8 days [3 countries] in 1 small Vera Bradley bag! Go me :)
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| My bag for the week!! |
Another thing is that you have to check in online before you get there [or they will charge you 40 euros]! Ridiculous! So today I went to check in for all 3 of my flights. Did the first two no problem... then the last one [flight to Paris, TOMORROW] I could not get to work. It kept telling me they did not have a record of this on file. Needless to say, I was freaking out, thinking I hadn't actually booked my flight. I had no idea what to do... we leave in less than 24 hours! Well, Ryanair is impossible to get in touch with [especially when you speak English only] but after an hour of calling people and getting help from Cinzia, I got in touch with someone who I could understand, kinda. After another 15 minutes, we discovered that I had made a typo in my email address!! I put .com instead of .edu! Which explains why I never got the confirmation email to begin with and it wasn't recognizing my email when I was trying to check in! I am still kicking myself!!! haha But I am blaming Ryanair for not having a "Confirm Email" slot like EVERY other website does! :) Note to self: Check info before you submit it.
Anyways, I hope everyone has a fun and relaxing Spring Break [if its this week]!!! I can't wait to hear stories and see all the pictures. Don't worry, I will be posting more than needed probably! Matt told me he wasn't even going to bring his camera because I would have it covered... haha, he knows me so well!
Be careful and don't forget your sunscreen :)
Love and miss you all.
xoxo
Britt
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