On Day 3, which I guess was Tuesday, we started off the day by going to my favorite coffee shop (aka "bar") and having Italian coffee. Dad was shockingly underwhelmed. It surprised me, because I thought that Italian coffee was supposed to be top-notch, and Dad, being a big coffee drinker, would surely love it. But oh well. I think he tolerated it for the week and will be glad to get back to the good old American stuff:-)
After our coffee, we went to the Forum and then to the Colosseum. I had never been inside the Colosseum, so it was a cool experience for me too. Here it is!
Il Colosseo
Then we walked to St. John Lateran, stopping on the way to look at S. Stefano Rotonda, but unfortunately we couldn't go in because it was closed at the time. It was lunchtime when we got to St. John's, so we had a picnic on one of the benches in front of the church.
The church is off to the left of this picture.
Peanut butter and Nutella--essential parts of my life in Rome.
When we were done eating, we actually went inside the church. We stayed for a while, and then walked to S. Maria Maggiore, another of the major basilicas. While we were there, we stumbled upon a Vespers (Evening Prayer) service, in Italian of course. It was awesome! We used Italian breviaries and everything.
After that, we continued our church tour and went to S. Susanna, to pick up our Papal Audience tickets for the next day! S. Susanna is the official American church in Rome, so we stayed for an English mass. Also, there was a painting of St. Genesius, patron of actors. It's nice to know that he actually exists--I had never heard or seen anything about him except from Mr. Leibrecht before DB plays. I took a picture for evidence, of course.
Laura, this one's for you:-)
We were pretty tired by this point, so we walked to a pizza and pasta place, ate dinner, got gelato at the 3rd of my 3 favorite gelato places, and called it a night.
On Wednesday we went to the Papal Audience in the morning! Mom said it was the closest she had ever been to a Pope, except possibly when we watched JPII drive by when he came to St. Louis, except she wasn't looking at the right time and missed him, so it didn't really count. That basically took all morning. For lunch we went to Corsi, the restaurant I had dinner at almost every night of last semester. I had my favorite pasta dish, and it was delicious as always. In the afternoon, we went to St. Paul's Outside the Walls, which I had been to before, and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which I had not been to before. Santa Croce has some pretty amazing relics--pieces of the True Cross and the Good Thief's Cross, thorns and nails, St. Thomas's finger, and the INRI sign that was above the Cross. That was all we had time for that day--we came back to the hotel and ate sandwiches there, I believe, to finish it off.
On Thursday, we left for Florence! We got there in the late morning, checked into our hotel, ate a relaxed lunch, and walked around a little bit. We went in the Duomo and then to the church of the Annunciation that's just down the street. When we got there, though, we realized that it was closed for the afternoon wouldn't open for another 20 minutes. That turned out to be the perfect amount of time to find a bar and take a coffee break...
Dad had Cafe Americano and Mom got yogurt, haha:-)
We went to the church of the Annunciation because it was founded by the Seven Holy Founders themselves (aka the Sette Santi Fondorati--so we can start referring to the parish back home as SSF instead of SHF if we want). When we got there, we learned that there's also a miraculous image of the Annunciation there--apparently the guy who painted it finished it most of the way, but left a blank spot where Mary's face would go, because he didn't feel worthy to paint it. Then he fell asleep, and when he woke up it was finished. Pretty awesome! Dad made the joke that it would be nice if that would happen with my architecture projects. I quite agree.
The next day we slept in, and then went to S. Maria Novella and S. Lorenzo. In the late afternoon, we hopped on a train to Livorno! It was cold and raining when we got there, so the walk to the hotel wasn't much fun. But when we got there we ate supper and played Boggle, so it turned out to be a good night after all.
The main thing we wanted to see in Livorno was actually just outside Livorno, a shrine dedicated to La Madonna della Grazie, also known as La Madonna del Montenero. She's the patroness of Tuscany, the region that Florence and Livorno are part of. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who mom has a huge devotion too, visited there and had a conversion experience there, which is the main reason we were going. We took a bus and then a funicular (which Dad says is like a cable car) up a large hill to get there. There was a great view from the top!
You can't spell "funicular" without "fun"! This is one of those beautiful self-portrait pictures that I still can't get quite right...
The Mediterranean Sea is in the background--Livorno is right on the coast!
The actual shrine itself was pretty cool, and has been visited by alot of important people (like Mother Seton).
Two great mothers:-)
JPII was also here back in the day, as well as a few other popes I think, and, one of my personal faves...St. Josemaria Escriva!
This quote is from The Way ("Cammina") and says something to the effect of "first by yourself it was hard, but now you go to your Mother, and with her, it is easy". That's a paraphrase--those who know Italian better than I, don't laugh at my translation:-)
Mom really wanted to get something from the bookstore, but it closed from noon til 3, and we got to it at about 12:15...so we decided to take the funicular down the hill, get lunch, and then come back. We found a nice sandwich shop and had a two course meal--sandwiches, and then ice cream bars an hour later (we had lots of time to kill).
Italian panini!
We went back to the bookshop for a bit, and then came down the hill for good and went back in to town. We saw one other church, but then it was too cold to do any more walking around, so we got our luggage and headed to the train station. We arrived back in Rome safely on Saturday night!
On Sunday, we went to mass at Il Gesu, the Jesuit church, because we hadn't been in there yet. Afterwards we cooked French toast and omelet and had a typical Sunday brunch. In the afternoon, we went to the Catacombs. It took a while to get there, because the buses were confusing, but we finally made it, and it was definitely worth it!
When we first went down there, I was thinking about the enduring nature of the Church, and how even persecution couldn't stomp it out and in fact just made it stronger, and how that same Church is still alive today...those were exciting thoughts. As the tour went on longer though, I started to just be a little more creeped out--we were walking down extremely narrow halls lined on either side with stacks and stacks of old graves, mostly empty, but a few that were still sealed up...and I guess my imagination just ran away a little bit. So I tried to focus more on what I had originally been thinking. And then on the way home, a neat thought occured to me--that style of living doesn't really appeal to me, the sneaking around dead bodies thing...I mean, those early years would definitely be an exciting time to be a part of the Church, but I don't really like picturing myself being a part of it--and that's ok, because God didn't want me to be a part of the Church at that time. He wants me to be a part of the Church TODAY, right now, at this specific point in history. We aren't facing outright persecution right now, but we're still fighting. And THIS is the time, out of all of history, that He decided to put me in. I guess I'm not done figuring out why yet...but it's kind of cool to think about that.
When we got back to the hotel, we ate, and then played Hearts. Dad won pretty handily. It was a lot of fun! Then we just hung out and talked for awhile, since it was Mom and Dad's last night in Rome and all.
This morning we woke up early and I went with them to the train station, where they caught a train to the airport and hopefully got on the plane and will get home smoothly late tonight (St. Louis time...it'll be in the middle of the night in Rome time)!
If you're still reading this, I'm impressed. I'm also impressed that Mom and Dad were able to live it all--we packed a lot into a week! It was a fantastic week, in my opinion, and I'm sure Mom and Dad would say the same!
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