The one day our professor was sick so he canceled our 4-hour studio leaving us free for the whole afternoon. After handing in our project, we headed to St. Peter’s Basilica to climb to the top of the dome. To climb to the top was a total of 550 stairs!! The climb is in a circular motion around the dome so at points it’s like a spiral staircase, very narrow and dizzying, while at others its quite wide with shallow steps. The first 300 stairs took us to the ledge that rings the inside of the bottom of the dome. I could not get over the views inside! It was so much higher than I expected. The people walking near the altar below looked like ants. The view gave such a unique perspective to the church’s size. It’s hard to tell from below how truly grand the dome is because of the lack of scale (no people). Leaving the interior volume of the dome, we entered again into the cavity between the exterior of the dome and the interior of the church. Once inside, the steps started rising in an incredibly tight spiral and then started zigzagging back and forth. As you near the top, the walls became so slanted that you had to bend your body too! The outside views of Rome were definitely gorgeous because it is the highest point in Rome (nothing can be built taller than St. Peter’s), but I’d say the experience of the stairs and the views into the interior volume of the church were my favorite part!
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| Yes- the walls really were this slanted!! |
On Ash Wednesday, the Pope has a procession from one church to another on Aventine Hill before saying Mass in the Church of San Sabina. Only a ten-minute walk from our apartment, we headed out early to make sure that we could get a good view to see the Pope. We didn’t have the tickets to allow us into the church, but a big screen TV had been set up so that those outside the church could also participate. We took a seat in that area and watched the procession on the TV start at the other church and then end directly in front of us. It was so exciting to see the Pope come towards us on his Pope mobile and pass no more than within 20 yards of us! Afterwards, the Pope said Mass, and we received the Eucharist and ashes blessed by him. Getting ashes was definitely a unique experience because unlike the U.S. where the ashes are very dark in color and are made into the sign of a cross on one’s forehead, here they had very light colored ashes and sprinkled them onto the top of people’s heads as they came forward.
Although we went to Viareggio for Carnevale, actual Fat Tuesday occurred when we were here in Rome. The city of Rome also holds a celebration, so Kelly and I went after class on Tuesday to Piazza del Popolo. There were various street performers including the one in my picture that was walking on stilts. In anticipation of the fireworks, Kelly and I decided to wait through what we thought would be a 40 minute show. It ended up turning into an almost 2 hour show! After a day of classes, I didn’t have the patience to fully enjoy the various horse and story acts… however the fireworks were definitely worth the wait! I was impressed when we saw the fireworks for Cinese Capodanno, but these ones were even better. They even incorporated shooting some off the fountain so that they almost fell like water! The event turned out to be quite a walk and quite a wait, but it was worth the effort to go because I haven’t seen fireworks like that in a long time!
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