Tenth Day
This morning we had to get up at 4:30 because we wanted to get to Rome for our 10:00 a.m. appointment in the Vatican city museums. Driving on the Highway was not bad this early. By the time we got closer to Rome the traffic became much worse. David did a great job to drive really close to our destination, and we found a great handicap parking for the whole day.
http://www.big-italy-map.co.uk/map-of-lazio-map.htm (region 12 from the big map)
We had a very excellent guided tour of the Vatican .
(go.hrw.com/atlas/ norm_htm/vatican.htm)
On our tour we went through the museums, the Sistine Chapel, and the St Peters' Basilica. For alot of us, Rome was a big dream come true.
We also found this really great web site with virtual tours of Vatican City (http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Visite.html).
Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II della
Rovere in 1508 to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel frescoed
earlier by Piero Matteo d'Amelia with a star-spangled sky. The work was
completed between 1508 and 1512. He painted the Last Judgement over the
altar, between 1535 and 1541, being commissioned by Pope Paul III
Farnese. This monumental fresco covers the entire end wall of the chapel
which led the obliteration of the frescoes painted at the time of Sixtus
IV: the first figures of the popes, the first two scenes of the life of
Christ and life of Moses, the image of the Virgin of Assumption (by
Perugino), together with the first two lunettes, representing the
Ancestors of Christ frescoed earlier by Michelangelo himself. The too
large windows set into the altar wall were closed up(http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/3sistina/).
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/3sistina/
This is our whole group in Rome
After the Vatican, we had lunch in a small restaurant close to the Basilica. In the afternoon we took the metro to visit ancient Rome. We started with the Closseum
By four in the afternoon, we were very tired and could not walk anymore, as you can see in the pictures above. We took a little rest on just about every ancient rock we passed. This actually helped us realize that Romans used granite for columns and building stones. After a short time however, even the rocks could not keep us rolling. All we could think of was to take it easy on the beach. And that is exactly what we did. We changed the original plan of going to Siena, and drove to the closest beach to Rome.
We went down to the beach at almost the first possible road, found a relatively reasonable hotel, and in twenty minutes we were walking on the beach enjoying the breathtaking Mediterranean sunset as it turned out, right next to a medieval castle.
www.porticciolo.it/ demo/xcd/Html/severa.htm
