Cruising the Adriatic--Rome

 St. Peters Square.  The Pope.  The Vatican.  These are all icons of Rome, and we spent the last day of our vacation enjoying them.

November 13, 2013, was a Wednesday, the day the Pope greets visitors and makes speeches on St. Peters Square.  We left the Celebrity Silhouette at 7:30 a.m. and drove into Rome on a post-cruise shore excursion.  We took a quick tour of the Vatican Museum before assembling in St. Peters Square with the other 20,000 or so visitors to see the Pope.

The Vatican Museum is a treasure house of paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and frescoes.  It also houses such miscellaneous items as 15th century maps of the world and pottery candles used by the early Christians.  Our guide introduced us to statues of Greek fertility goddesses and male war heroes, and huge tapestries woven in Belgium during the Middle Ages.

 

 

 

The highlight of our quick visit was, of course, the Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling painted by Michelangelo.

 

We also enjoyed the beauty of the Vatican Museum itself, with its unusual trees and carved circular staircase leading to the collections.

When we got to St. Peters Square, at 11 a.m., it was filled to bursting with pilgrims and with curious tourists like us.  Huge tvs were ready to beam the Pope's face and words.

 

Our guide pointed out the building where the Pope lives.

My telephoto lens wasn't strong enough to get a clear picture of the white-robed pope, but there is a white-robed someone just barely visible in this admittedly blurry photo.  The white-robed someone moved around the stand, with its drapery, greeting people, and he also walked into the crowds.  The new pope is very popular.

There were many groups of pilgrims in the crowd, who posed together for photographs or wore matching scarfs or caps.

 

 

We stopped at the official Vatican gift store, on a busy street near St. Peters Square, where visitors snapped up rosaries, religious pictures, and "peace" pins.

Our tour group took a bus ride around Rome, checking out the Coliseum, Victor Emmanuel Monument, and Roman Forum.  We also took a walking tour, strolling through a farmer's market to shops selling gelato and pizza funghi (with mushrooms) by the Trevi Fountain.

 

 

After the tour, Dave and I checked into our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, and Dave announced he was done for the day and with the trip.  I was aghast.  "An afternoon in Rome, and you're not going sightseeing?" I asked incredulously.  After some negotiation, we spent another hour or more in the Vatican Museum.  Dave wanted to see more Roman statues.  My genealogy says I am related to the gentleman in the third picture, Emperor Trajan.  Our guide described, earlier, how the popes directed that fig leaves be placed strategically on statues of nudes.

 

 

I loved the paintings, especially the very rare works by Raphael.

We both enjoyed the Vatican Museum plaza, with its Egyptian statue of a lion and its huge brass globe.

We finished the day on St. Peters Square, as night fell.

 

There were so many familiar and beautiful artworks in the Basilica of St. Peter.

 

 

 

 

 

Outside, we enjoyed seeing cardinals in their red robes, and the statue of St. Peter looking over the Square, like the shepherd he was.

 

It was magical as the lights twinkled on and the sun set.

Cruising the Adriatic--Naples

As I wrote my book about my father, I was fascinated by his description of traveling to Naples in 1931 with his sister, Sally.  They visited Pompeii and shopped for cameos, one of which I still have.  They also drove along the coast and swam in the sea.  On November 12, 2013, Dave and I visited Pompeii, shopped for cameos, and drove along the spectacular Amalfi Drive, above the sea.

Cameos are hand-carved from different colors of shell.  They cost more or less, depending on the skill of the craftsman.  I bought a cameo in Pompeii carved by one of the teachers at the cameo school.

 

The cameo store also had a reproduction of one of the famous mosaics from Pompeii, of a dog with a collar--he was a household pet.

Dave and I wandered with our witty guide, Manuela, through the ruins of Pompeii.  Pompeii was buried by ash suddenly, following the volcanic eruption of nearby Mt. Vesuvius.  That mountain is still an active volcano, from which residents may have to flee again someday.   "They say they have a plan for us if Mt. Vesuvius erupts," Manuela said of the Italian authorities.  "We don't know what the plan is yet.  Maybe they will email us someday, 'Run!'" 

We visited the amphitheater, where gladiators fought and where statues still remain.

We visited streets filled with ancient shops, including "their McDonalds," as Manuela said, where indentations on counters were still visible, where pots would have been kept hot. Some of the stores had two storeys.

 

 

 

 

We visited an elegant villa, with colored frescos still visible and ovens in the former kitchen.

We saw a spa with a vaulted ceiling.  Inside was a plaster cast of a body, caught in the eruption and covered by ash.  Modern scientists filled the holes in the petrified ash with plaster to preserve the shapes of Pompeii residents whose bodies had long ago decayed.

We paused at the forum to see the statues and views of Vesuvius still looming over the petrified city.

 

 

 

 

We relaxed over lunch, as a singer went from table to table, singing Italian favorites like "O Sole Mio."

We then drove along the Amalfi Way, a road leading high above the sea, with houses clinging to cliffs which descended straight down into the blue water.

"This is a romantic place," Manuela reminded us.  "Kiss and I'll take your picture."

We stopped at a small shop, "La Conca Azzura" (Blue Shell?) where the views were even more spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

We had an hour to wander around Sorrento, a town on the Amalfi coast.  During the Middle Ages, Amalfi was one of the four maritime republics of Italy, along with Venice, Genoa, and Pisa.  We visited the "lido," or promenade along the beach, lined with restaurants, shops, and hotels.

The highlight, for me, was a visit to the cathedral on the hill.

It was filled with gorgeous Renaissance artwork.

 

 

We peeked at shops filled with limoncello, the local lemon liqueur, and we searched among the competing shops for one more perfect gelato.