The Vatican and Pompeii

Day 2 and 3

Click through to make the pictures bigger... I apologize for the crummy formatting again, Blogger's wysiwig editor really sucks.

We went to the Vatican on day 2. On the way, we had some troubling news, the Vatican would be closing at 2:00, and we made reservations for 1:00.

Why Obama Why?! We voted for you! Off with his head!!

But it turned out that Barack and Michelle were coming the next day at 2, and not today, so we got to spend the day uninterrupted at the Vatican.

First, we got to see some children feeding the pigeons outside.

Entering the Vatican Museum, you go through a courtyard, with a giant brass ball.
I’m not sure what it was, or what it represented, but I thought it was pretty neat. I ended up taking a whole bunch of pictures of it, for a 360 degree view.

Entering the museum, there was a spot that was roped off to visitors, but it just screamed “We got a whole lot more where that came from!”

The place was so lavish, they had to decorate the ceiling. More on that later.

Entering the museum proper, I got to spend some time with an argumentative friend. Socrates is so wrong about not knowing anything. Sheesh.

Tiff found a new friend, but I told her it would scare the cats if she brought it home.

This carving depicts amazons being conquered by the Christians. Note the single boob.

A little bit later into the museum, we discovered where the giant brass ball came from: This is Hercules. Note that the fig leaf was added to the statue, after the Church had removed his balls.

Even the pedestals that the statues were on were works of art in themselves. Checkout the way they arranged the grains on the marble.

There was a long hallway filled with some incredible tapestries. This one of Jesus coming back for seconds, couldn’t even fit in one picture.

And of course more beautiful frescos on the ceilings. This could be straight out of a Magic the Gathering card.

I got to see The School of Athens by Raphael up close and personal. Here Plato and Aristotle are arguing about metaphysics (Aristotle kicks Plato’s butt).

Finally we got to the Sistine Chapel. Pictures weren’t allowed inside, so let me describe it to you…. Whoa.
After the Sistine Chapel, we went next door to St. Peter’s Basilica. The place is absolutely huge!

It was so big that birds would fly inside and not really know that they were indoors, until they exploded with God’s love.

And of course… The Pieta. Pictures don’t do it justice. I’m not terribly religious, but the Vatican was more than just a church, it really was an art museum, where people happened to pray.

Afterwards, we were walking back to the Metro when I saw this. You know you’re in Italy when you see two old Italian ladies sitting out on the sidewalk café just people watching.

The day was over, and boy did our feet hurt. We spent almost 5 hours in Vatican city, and we didn’t even see everything. But we really needed to get some food in us. I had a scoop of lemon and a scoop of mixed berry gelato, Tiff had a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of mango. Perfecto!

By the time we were back and in the hotel, it was 11pm, and we had to get up early the next day for our tour bus to Pompeii. It arrived at 7:00 am. Now the your description said that it was going to be a Naples and Pompeii tour, we’d see the archaeological museum in Naples and do a walking tour of Pompeii with lunch included. We’d be back by 8:30pm. So we figured we’d have loads of time in Pompeii.

Well, it turns out that it was a 3 ½ hour ride to Naples, not because it was far far away (and it is pretty far) but because we had two stops, a rest break, and a tourist trap break to sell us cameos. But Tiff found a very cute fuzzy kitty cat Cameo. But it really was a bummer that we spent so much time with their sponsors.

We got to Naples, and we stopped on the coast to take some pictures. We drove by some archaeological dig spots, where they had uncovered 3 spanish merchant ships while they were digging for a metro line. Apparently you can’t dig anywhere in Italy without finding something cool. But that was the it for Naples. So we didn’t see a museum after all.

We got to Pompeii at 1:00 but then we had lunch….

So Tiff and I are vegetarians, and we were looking at each other because we were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to eat anything, since the waiters just came around to the tables asking for pasta or soup. We asked if the pasta was vegetarian, and they said yes, so we breathed a sigh of relief. They brought out a tiny plate of pasta. It was just the first course. Then they started bringing out cuts of pork (I think) and mashed potatoes. Now the cuts were really thin and the mashed potatoes was about a serving spoon full, so it wasn’t a lot, but it was a light lunch, and we had pasta before. But of course we couldn’t eat that. We told them we were vegetarians and when we put in our reservation on the tour they said there would be a vegetarian option on the tour. So they understood, and after everyone else was served, they came out with a few plates of the vegetarian lunch. We weren’t the only vegetarians there, there were two other people. But what they brought out was pretty comical. A slice of Swiss cheese, and a leaf of lettuce that was ripped up into 5 pieces with oil and salt. Now I have a penchant for exaggerating, but this is no exaggeration. I only regret that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to take a picture of it. But at least the cheese was very tasty.

So we arrived to the Pompeii ruins at 2:15 and the tour would end at 4:30. So what we thought was going to be an all day excursion to the ruins turned out to be a couple of hours. Our tour guide was this old Italian guy. He had some great stories, and I’d love to sit down and just listen to him, but I also wanted to see Pompeii. He led us to the entrance to the ruins, and then he started telling us about the things we were about to see, and the history of the place, before we actually got to see anything. Tiff and I were about ready to desert the tour group at that point. He just chatted and chatted forever. Then we finally started moving.

We first saw the Gladiator arena. It was pretty cool. You could see where the gladiators entered the arena, and where the audience would go under the stands and up through their tunnels (just like our modern day stadiums) to get to their seats. I thought that was pretty cool.

We saw the famous plaster casts of people. One of them in particular was of a child who looked like he was sucking his thumb when he died. Sorry for the crummy quality of the picture, I was taking the picture through a really dirty and highly reflective glass pane.

They had been planting grapes to recreate what the city would look like back in the day. You can see Mt. Vesuvius in the background, and some guy in the foreground.

Why did Tiffany cross the street? Because she wanted to use the crosswalk. The stones are raised up like that so that when the streets are flooded with water to clean them, pedestrians could still cross the street. There are spaces between the stones so that chariots could still use the street. Their wheels would go between the stones.

Some parts of the city were so well preserved by the ash that you could see some of the writings on the walls. This says, “Vote for Pedro.” (Okay so it doesn’t, but it does say Vote for somebody…)

Our tour guide pointed out a spot to us. He said that this area had been recently uncovered and what we were seeing was an actual mosaic of a dog on the floor. Most of the mosaics in the ruins are replicas; the real mosaics are in museums elsewhere. Speaking of dogs in Pompeii…
This is Pompey the Pompeii Pooch. We saw him sleeping in one of the aristocrat’s homes. I thought he was dead at first, but we saw him breathing, and I went to pet him. I tried offering him some water, and he just got up and went to lie down away from me. Tiff thought he didn’t know what I was doing so she splashed some water on him. He looked up at her and said, “Seriously, I’m fine. I just want to sleep. That’s what Pompeii dogs do.” So he walked out of the aristocrat’s house, and then to punctuate his distaste for us, he pooped in front of the tour group, then curled himself up to sleep in the shade. At least we knew he was eating.

After another 3 hour drive back, we had showers and went out for dinner. Tiffany had ravioli stuffed with cheese and truffles in a mushroom cream sauce. I had spaghetti with tomatoes, basil, and garlic. Both of our dishes were fantastic! We shared a plate of French fries (yes, French fries… it was on the menu), and then we had dessert. Tiff had a panacotta covered in chocolate sauce (super yummy), and I had a slice of the most fantastic tiramisu I’ve ever had. They put chocolate chips in the middle of it. The waiter gave us some lemoncello in a frozen glass to top it all off on the house! The best part…. The place is practically next door to our hotel. So if we need another good dinner, we know where to go.

Ciao Bella!
~Tiffany and Wayne