Sistine Chapel! and junk - Thurs 23 Feb

we were supposed to have a walking tour of post-World War 2 architecture, but we misunderstood where to meet Randy, so 30 minutes later 4 of us headed off the the Sistine Chapel... which meant back to the Vatican to the Vatican museums; the chapel is actually within 100 feet of St. Peters, but they force you through the entire museum first. Not exactly a chore, they were incredibly dense with important stuff... rather stuffed though. Many sculpture hallways that went on and on and on... beautiful stuff, rather... piled though. Junkyard! Ha. Many Egyptian sarcophogi, a real mummy, much Greek and Roman statuary, room after room after room of Rafael-decorated rooms.... less exciting then i would have though.... a gallery of modern 'religious' art.... they were kind of trying a little hard with that one. refreshing breath before Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel though. and it was.... kind of anticlimatic. beautiful, gorgeous, near-breathing paintings, the outstretched hands of adam and god, many many half-dressed beautiful people falling off the ceilings... and a crick in my neck and art fatigue to go with it. So it goes.

Afterwards we visited the tomb of John Paul 2 (Papa Giovanni Paulo Duex), trendily calm slab of white marble under St. Peters.... sigh no reverence really.

This stairway was by Borromini (I'm pretty sure, possibly Bramante or Bernini, but Borromini seems to do the cool stairs) in the museum complex.... the orders of the capitols changed with each rotation, seemed a little forced on the continuous spiral though. Made FLWright's Guggenheim seem a lot less revolutionary - this was also a display space, and just a tad bit older... 

Beth's First Opera! in a cockroach!

interesting bus ride out to the opera... held in the new auditoriums by renzo piano - some of the only new architecture in rome - and quite beautiful and successful, i felt. the roman brick of the base really made it feel a part of the city. the honestly cockroach-evocative auditoriums poised on the top of the roman ampitheater that centered into the main plazza were excellent examples of design - they sound very wierd but were quite wonderful in person.

grabbed some quick cafe food and a glass of wine before the opera... turned out to be not that great of an idea, by the end my head was... um nodding, at least a little :S erps ha. but the opera was delightful, 'The Rake's Progress" by Stravinsky - done in a classical style, not chromatic or dissonant like I had slightly expected. It was in English, but either due to the singing style or acoustics I couldn't really understand it anyway. They had the subtitles, of course... in Italian... they still helped, knowing a little of Spanish made it moderately interpretable - but it was more fun to just watch and enjoy the music anyway. We picked up a libretto on the break, which helped greatly, although the plot was pretty transparent, especially given the title. Very unique staging and beautiful stagehands, there's really a lot to listen to and watch in an opera (this was my first). I think maybe I like the purity of a symphonic concert better, but I didn't object to the opera style at home.

Plus there was the gorgeous concert hall - all mid-toned wood, veneered onto organic bubble forms coming out of the ceiling, not at all classical, but very grand and beautiful. Was an exciting day, Tony and I had been giddy about going to the opera all day and we all had walked many many a mile. 

nice day woo!

lots more walking around lost to find the architecturally significant tempieta by bramante by the spanish embassy - gorgeous walk though, perfect weather, and on the crest of a long hill so great views. saw the only anti-tourist graphitti yet on it... was impressed.... hmm beautiful. this is after the work, up at the typewriter, and the Maria Allicini church that houses the Gesu Bambino (baby doll jesus, apparently like santa claus there) and an ancient statue of castor(or pollox) and just to show off the only day of beautiful weather until the weekend.... evening preparation to go to... the opera! 

i'm not just a pair of eyes here?!?

ha look! it's a picture with me in it! crazy - and you can see the wound bern inflicted on my tender flesh... a few days healed... it really did heal remarkably fast. and... that's the view from on top of the dome, really fun staircase winding up, some of it rather psychadelically twisted where the ceiling started to bow over with the arch rather close to your head... really made me appreciate being somewhat in shape, the climb wasn't a problem but there were a lot of panting people. views wow... perfectly clear at that point, could see all the way to the mountains, and imagine the ocean.... much more a dense sprawling city then florence, and not so much tuscan vividness of colors - but a lot more intriguing white hulks poking out of the city fabric.... pretty, hung out on the roof by the gift shop for everyone to get their rosaries and whatever (disgusting number of gift shops... you HAD to walk through one to get up to the tower... meh commercialism in sacred spaces).... 

Vatican hugeness

Hmm... we thought the really long lines to get into the Vatican were because Wednesday is the day the Pope allows visitations, but apparently we weren't even in that line... it went all the way across the plazza. even worse though, was the line for the bathroom - males got to go right in, i had to wait for 20 minutes.... ugh. gross bathrooms too, sexist Catholics.... ;). seriously though, no toilet seat is not a good bathroom.

back in line for another while, the interior of the space was enormous - i had mentally pictured it even larger i guess... but it was quite substantial enough. gorgeous artwork, even more impressive when we found out they were not paintings, but murals.... would have sworn they were paintings, the pieces were indistinguishable until about 2 feet away... and you couldn't get within 2 feet. very nice to see a church with sun pouring in, wish i had been able to see a more baroque cathedral in that light too... anyway, beautiful, then a long wait to go up into the cupola..... 

Popeland! Wed 22 Feb

day 2 - walking tour with randy... gave myself an hour to walk across the city, should have been easy to make it in the morning, but i walked through the forum (free) and apparently the ruins sucked me into their timelessness, because i walked about about 20 minutes later then i thought i would have. they were very beautiful in the morning light though. and sprinting lost in a strange city is always an intense experience (honestly i rather like it, the pressure to not be late is not the greatest but experiencing the fabric at a different pace is nice). crossed the tiber and through a little island, made it 10 minutes late but before most of the group: therefore, notlate. walking tour of many palazzos with randy, a random outrageous church or two, par for the course, then a walk across the statued bridge into the arms of the first serious fortification i think i've seen in europe. it looked serious, boring and substantial. right turn along the river to the axis and country of the Vatican. wee... the weather was more exciting, i was able to take off my jacket and sweater for about the first time here. clouds continued to be erratically dark, thus the picture of the collonade by bramante wrapping the piazza in front of St. Peters.