Italy

I’ve decided to post some pics of Italy from our trip several years ago.  It was a fantastic trip, and I hope to go back again and see the parts we didn’t get to see, like Venice and Capri.

In Rome we stayed a few doors down from Saint Peters Basilica, at the Hotel Columbus.

The location was fantastic for the Vatican and the Basilica.  As it was summer, it was blistering hot, and I packed sleeveless dresses.  This was a mistake, as I could not enter into any churches without sleeves (on my dress, not the church).  I ended up buying a scarf and wrapping it around my shoulders so I could get past the guards.

The Pieta is one of the most moving pieces of art I’ve seen.  One can almost feel Mary’s agony as she holds her dead son.  There is a story told that after Michelangelo carved this magnificent piece, he overheard two workmen discussing it.  Part of their discussion was their disbelief that Michelangelo had indeed sculpted it as they believed him to be too young, so Michelangelo came back in the middle of the night and carved “Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this” on the sash that Mary wears.

Of course there are many other pieces of beautiful artwork here.

And if you get bored, there is always confession, heard in a multitude of languages…