The Life and Travels of Sherckle: June 2013

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Just another day in Rome....

St. Peter's Square, Rome

You can never fault us for timing. We really know how to plan a trip and how to arrange an itinerary! One would always plan to sightsee in a popular European city where people would be gathering right? Think Pentecostal Sunday 2013. Rome. 200,000 people. Think chaos. Crowded bus stops. Bus stops moved to unknown locations.

Yes, we really know how to plan a visit! (Actually we should blame our religious guru, my BIL Joe, who goes to Mass more than the Pope himself....whom his grand kids say is going to become a priest in his old age....Joe shoulda known that we were crazy to be in this city during Pentecostal weekend.)

So here we are. In Rome. On Saturday. Of Pentecostal weekend. We wanted to visit the Jewish Ghetto, Trastevere, the Pantheon and a few other places. Getting from here to there would be a challenge. Lets just say we walked that day... Walked ALOT. We crossed the Tiber River...

We walked thru piazzas...

And thru alleyways...

We saw more fountains (don't ask what this one is...I don't remember.. LOL)

We saw more piazzas....

...and more churches...

And city ruins from long-ago lives....and town squares built around the discovered 107 BC temple ruins...

The Sacred Area of Largo Argentina

[This area was/is fascinating! See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/largo_di_torre_argentina for more information!]

The Layout of the Sacred Area of Largo Argentia

At this point we were already tired of walking.... We realized that crowds around the Vatican were going to be horrendous and scrutinized our map to see the best way to get back to our apartment without going thru St. Peter's Square....

We stopped in a small park to rest our feet....

Street-side trolley that didn't go near our apartment...

We crossed the Tiber...AGAIN...

We saw more town squares..

And more scenic, off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods....

Streets shown on our map ended abruptly...dead-ending into parks.... Which (with hindsight) we probably should have walked THRU!

We stopped and rested weary legs in this church where little ones were about to celebrate their first communion...

Once again admiring the beautiful ceilings.....

...and walked some more...thru this square no less that three times as we kept weaving around outer-lying

neighborhoods looking for that one street that would get us back to our apartment....

...now looking for one of these....seemingly no where to be found!...

After all, they were all near the Vatican for the Pope's mass!

Finally... One cabby came by, stopped and took pity on us....even tho they aren't allowed in Rome to pick up

random passengers on the street... Good thing he did! It was clearly another 15 minute ride back "home"!

Sitting in our favorite nearby restaurant an hour later we remembered why we were avoiding the Vatican...the crowds leaving that area were filtering out of St. Peter's Square and down the sidewalks of our street...

It was a day of great exploration and seeing local sights we otherwise would have never seen but, oh! Were our feet tired!

Posted with Blogsy

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The Vatican & St. Peter's Basilica

It's not a terrific shot (above) because it was taken as I leaned over a railing, but wayyyy down at the end... that little dot in the light at the end of the tunnel...is one of the Swiss Vatican guards. (I just know you're impressed! LOL!)

Walkways & courtyards between the Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's

Afternoon light streaming into St. Peter's

Michaelangelo's Pieta

To give perspective...the lettering around the perimeter is 6 feet tall!

Below: An interesting article~ http://catholicism.org/five-hundred-years-of-loyalty-the-gallantry-of-the-popes-swiss-guard.html

Posted with Blogsy

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Rome: A Sweet Corner Restaurant

I'll post more about the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica on another day but one of our fondest memories will be of a restaurant just two doors down from our Air B & B apartment. We were dog tired from walking literally miles upon miles each day (probably about ten (!) and this was just too convenient not to try. It had only three tables inside, and maybe four or five outside that could seat four four dinner. We had passed it the first afternoon in Rome and couldn't help but smile as music from the Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive" blared out from the inside.