So we actually only have one proper day in Rome before flying out to Sydney via Dubai at 3pm tomorrow.
I have already been to Rome and so had Cat. There were some things that I wanted to see so we stayed around the Colosseum area and saw those things.
The first place we visited was La Scala Sancta church. This is a small Catholic church that contains a relic - Pontius Pilate's stairs. These are supposedly the stairs that Jesus ascended when he was appearing before Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem before his crucifixion.
Constatine the Great's mother, St. Helena apparently brought these stairs to Rome around 326AD. You can only ascend these stairs on your knees and people still do it today. There are 28 stairs and you say a prayer on each step. Popes used to grant indulgences to people who did this.
The reason why I wanted to see these stairs is because Martin Luther climbed these stairs on his knees and went home without any assurance that his sins were truly forgiven. He later read the Bible for himself and realised that being right with God depended on faith in Jesus alone and not from any works he could do or any indulgence the church or the Pope could dispense.
We did not climb the stairs on our knees. There are two staircases to either side of the 'holy' stairs and we went up there. Once at the top you can see a very well decorated room that they call the 'holy of holies'. There is a little chapel to the right of the stairs.
This part of the visit was quite funny. Rome is actually still quite hot at this time of year. Cat and I were both wearing shorter dresses and I had a cardigan on. We were given bad looks when we entered the church and then a priest asked us to leave because our knees were not covered and neither were Cat's shoulders.... Hehe that was the most decadent thing we did all trip - get thrown out of a church!
Across the road is the Pope's chapel which is actually not a little chapel but one massive, huge ornate building. We didn't even try to go in...
The next thing I wanted to see was the Arch of Constantine which is next to the Colosseum. In 312, Constantine the Great (one of the Roman emperors) saw a vision in the sky during a battle at Milvian Bridge. It led him to put the Christian symbol, a Greek 'chi-rho' on the shields of his troups and win the battle. In 313, the Edict of Milan granted tolerance to Christianity in the Roman Empire. Christians had previously suffered immense persecution.
We learnt about all this in church history but the question was asked whether Constatine was really a Christian. His mother was a Christian and he supported it. The Arch of Constatine was erected to celebrate the triumph of the battle of Milvian. I was just interested to look at it. I did notice that there is no 'chi-rho' on the arch at all and no Christian carvings appear on the arch.
Cat and I were in the general area so we decided to visit Palatine Hill and see some Roman ruins. We had both done the Colosseum so did not bother as time was short.
It is amazing to look at the ruins and try to imagine the buildings as they were. The remnant columns are so large and high. It's amazing to think they built all this such a long time ago when there were no cranes or electronic tools to help lift all those heavy stones.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Florence Part 1
Today we did a one day tour of Florence. It was a long day!! We had been used to sleeping in and getting up late as this is Barcelona time (very laid back). Our tour started at 9:15am and we were really struggling to stay awake.
The first part of the tour was a walking tour. The meeting point was at Ponte Vecchio. The bridge is filled with gold jewelery stores. Apparently in the 2nd World War, everything around the bridge was destroyed but the bridge remained intact. The Ponte Vecchio used to be the meat and butcher market of Florence but when the de Medici's came to power, they converted it to jewelery stores. This was because they built two palaces on either end of the bridge and had visitors often and the visitors would have to cross the bridge to go from palace to palace. The meat market would have smelled bad in the days of no refridgeration. It was nicer for the wealthy guests of the de Medicis to cross and admire gold on the way.
There were also secret passages built between the palaces and the place where you see windows on an upper storey of the Ponte Vecchio is the only place where the passage becomes visible to the public.
We walked to the Plaza della Signora and looked at the big replica statue of Michaelangelo's David outside the Palazzo Vecchio and a whole heap of other sculptures in the square. To the right of the Palazzo there is a statue of 'Neptune' except the face looks a little like the face of one of the de Medicis. So the locals don't call the statue 'Neptune' but they call it something Italian that means 'the white giant'.
Nearby, there is a little outdoor market that is famous for the 'porchetta'. It is a bronze pig that is a replica of a sculpture in the Uffizi gallery. There is also a similar pig in the Sydney Hospital that was a gift from the city of Florence to Sydney. The superstition is this... you pat the pig's snout for luck and then put a coin in the pig's mouth. You let go of the coin and if it drops into the grate below then it means you will be back in Florence soon (some legends say it is luck).
After that we walked to the Duomo (the dome). We were able to go inside the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The inside is surprisingly plain compared to the elaborate gothic appearance of the outside of the church. But the dome is an amazing feat of architecture. I had seen some of the background to the building of the dome on Kevin McCloud's European Grand Tour DVD.
The morning part of the tour ended with a trip to the Accademia Gallery. Our guide showed us some of the sculptures and told us what to look out for. There was one which was "The Rape of the Sabine Women" (n.b. rape is the literal translation of contextual abduction). It depicted a Sabine woman being carried off by two Roman men. The statue is designed to be looked at from all angles (not just from the front). The bodies of the three figures are intertwined in a spiral like pattern so that you walk around the sculpture and see it from different angles.
The other famous sculpture at the Accademia Gallery is Michaelangelo's David. Our guide explained to us how Michaelangelo studied human form to get perfection and precision in his sculpture. The David is obviously nude to represent strength as Greek gods and athletes were always portrayed nude. But she said the stance of David is one of a thinker or philosopher.
After lunch, the tour continued at the Uffizi Gallery. Our guide was great and gave us an insight into the artwork displayed there. She explained some history of the artist as well as the things to notice in each piece of art and how to interpret it.
The first part of the tour was a walking tour. The meeting point was at Ponte Vecchio. The bridge is filled with gold jewelery stores. Apparently in the 2nd World War, everything around the bridge was destroyed but the bridge remained intact. The Ponte Vecchio used to be the meat and butcher market of Florence but when the de Medici's came to power, they converted it to jewelery stores. This was because they built two palaces on either end of the bridge and had visitors often and the visitors would have to cross the bridge to go from palace to palace. The meat market would have smelled bad in the days of no refridgeration. It was nicer for the wealthy guests of the de Medicis to cross and admire gold on the way.
There were also secret passages built between the palaces and the place where you see windows on an upper storey of the Ponte Vecchio is the only place where the passage becomes visible to the public.
We walked to the Plaza della Signora and looked at the big replica statue of Michaelangelo's David outside the Palazzo Vecchio and a whole heap of other sculptures in the square. To the right of the Palazzo there is a statue of 'Neptune' except the face looks a little like the face of one of the de Medicis. So the locals don't call the statue 'Neptune' but they call it something Italian that means 'the white giant'.
Nearby, there is a little outdoor market that is famous for the 'porchetta'. It is a bronze pig that is a replica of a sculpture in the Uffizi gallery. There is also a similar pig in the Sydney Hospital that was a gift from the city of Florence to Sydney. The superstition is this... you pat the pig's snout for luck and then put a coin in the pig's mouth. You let go of the coin and if it drops into the grate below then it means you will be back in Florence soon (some legends say it is luck).
After that we walked to the Duomo (the dome). We were able to go inside the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The inside is surprisingly plain compared to the elaborate gothic appearance of the outside of the church. But the dome is an amazing feat of architecture. I had seen some of the background to the building of the dome on Kevin McCloud's European Grand Tour DVD.
The morning part of the tour ended with a trip to the Accademia Gallery. Our guide showed us some of the sculptures and told us what to look out for. There was one which was "The Rape of the Sabine Women" (n.b. rape is the literal translation of contextual abduction). It depicted a Sabine woman being carried off by two Roman men. The statue is designed to be looked at from all angles (not just from the front). The bodies of the three figures are intertwined in a spiral like pattern so that you walk around the sculpture and see it from different angles.
The other famous sculpture at the Accademia Gallery is Michaelangelo's David. Our guide explained to us how Michaelangelo studied human form to get perfection and precision in his sculpture. The David is obviously nude to represent strength as Greek gods and athletes were always portrayed nude. But she said the stance of David is one of a thinker or philosopher.
After lunch, the tour continued at the Uffizi Gallery. Our guide was great and gave us an insight into the artwork displayed there. She explained some history of the artist as well as the things to notice in each piece of art and how to interpret it.
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