To Be Continued...

Roma....I'll be back!!!!

Buona Pasqua! Good Friday and Easter in Rome...

An "angel" gave me a ticket to sit on state at the Easter Mass with Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's....Grazie Mille!

It was a wonderful mass shared with about 100,000 of my brothers and sisters! (Pic 11)



The entrance procession. Pope Benedict is right in front of the statue of St. Peter. (Pic 1)


The Pope and an icon of Jesus and Jesus crucified. (Pic 2)



The Swiss guards in formation before mass. (Pic 3)








Red tulips, orange tiger lilies and yellow broom plants were among the flowers delivered from the Netherlands — and at the end of the service The Pope thanked the Dutch for the gift.







The first reading. (Pic 5)








The priests went out into the assembly to give Holy Communion. (Pic 6)







Pope Benedict giving Holy Communion. (Pic 7)

The Pope praying during mass. (Pic 8)

Black-robed clerics intoned a long chant from the Byzantine liturgy. (Pic 9)

I was thinking what a beautiful day....I never would have imagined I would be here 7 months ago when I started this journey....(Pic 10)

My view of St. Peter's square from the stage. (Pic 11) The people were lined up well past the square and the street.

A blessing at the end of mass. (Pic 12)

The Easter Mass booklet. (Pic 13)

After mass The Pope went up to the window to give his weekly Urbi et Orbi address. (Pic 13)

Good Friday I participated in Via Crucis with the Pope at the Colosseo. (Pic 14)

It was late evening and too dark for my camera but here is Pope Benedict with the Cross. (Pic 15)

I snapped this shot as the crowd was leaving after the Stations of the Cross. (Pic 16)

The Way of the Cross booklet. (Pic 17)

Traditionally everyone has an Easter Egg... a chocolate egg with a surprise in the middle. Here is mine. I also had a traditional Easter Cake called a Colomba....mine was a little more flavorful than the real traditional one...it had chocolate icing and chocolate cream inside. It is in the shape of a dove. (Pic 18)

Some of my favorite spots...

Someone told me that I spent a lot of time talking about food. I spend even more time eating it! Here are just a few of my favorite places to grab a meal or quick treat.

Giolitti's is a gelateria (gelato = ice cream) that is literally right next to my apartment. (Pic 1) I ate it almost 5 times a week. I ate chocolate and hazelnut almost every time!


Da Francesco is a local place where I would get some fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and foccacia to start. Then some pasta with cream and gorgonzola cheese. Maybe a little grilled meat and veggies and top it off with chocolate mousse. (Pic 2)






Da Baffetto's is a popular pizza spot that makes the thin, thin Roman style pizza with crunchy burned edges. Yum! They are only open at night and only does pizza. The line is always hanging out the door! The owners are known to be grumpy to the patrons but were usually sweet to me. (Pic 3)








Cul de Sac was my favorite enoteca where we would dine on various meats, cheeses, pate's etc. Their wines were popular too. (Pic 4)






To curb my sweettooth I would sometimes take home mixed pastries from La Deliziosa. Overall the pastries in Rome weren't sweet enough for my American palate....with the exception of Milan. (Pic 5)








Acchiappafantasmi (translates as ghostbusters) served up some my favorite spicy Italian food from the region of Calabria I think. (Pic 6) One of my favorites was the Strozzapreti (which means priest strangler)....sorry Fr. Peter. (smile)





Meganne treated me to a wonderful home cooked lunch on a beautiful terrace before I had to leave. (Pic 7)








Here is me with a full belly enjoying the view. (Pic 8)

I was in St. Mary Major and snapped this shop of the Gian Lorenzo Bernini and family tomb. It was very inconspicuous...I almost missed it. (Pic 9)

The other day I turned the corner from my apartment and stumbled upon a show...The Passion of Christ According to Bernini at Palazzo Incontro. The show included paintings and sculptures by Bernini and others from his school. I definitely prefer Bernini's sculptures over his paintings.

I would have to say some of my very favorite things during my stay in Italy are my digital camera and the internet!!! Plane, train and bus tickets were appreciated too!

Ostia Antica...

One sunny and warm afternoon I hopped on the train and went to Ostia Antica for the afternoon. Ostia Antica is located at the mouth of the Tiber River just a 30 minute trip from Rome. The city is very ancient but the remaining buildings are from the 3rd -4th century. The city was developed first for defense and then later used as a commercial harbor.




(Pic 1) shows the theater.


(Pic 2) is a view from the outside of the theater.







(Pic 3) shows a littler girl in front of the stage where the choir sat entertaining the tourists that were sitting down taking a rest.











(Pic 4) shows some of the coffins that were resting in the cemetery outside of the city walls.







(Pic 5) shows the gym. Boy!...those ancient Romans were really into fitness! Every ancient city I've visited had a gym. Now you'd be hard pressed to find a fitness center in modern day Rome...and it is even harder to find an Italian that goes. They believe in a more relaxed lifestyle. You can tell by my fitness room in my house that collects dust....I'm with that!



Tee Hee Hee! I found the communal latrines. I guess it was normal to socialize while using the facilities. (Pic 6)







(Pic 7) shows where water flowed through the gutters in the floor. I have to say I was just a little bit grossed out when they told me that the people passed around a sponge on a stick that was "refreshed" by dipping it in the water flowing through the gutters before each use. Ewww!!








Check out the beautiful mosaic floors in the Neptune baths...beautiful! (Pic 8)











(Pic 9) more beautiful mosaics.








I walked up the stairs of the Capitulum. You can't really tell by the picture but it is quite tall and large. (Pic 10)










(Pic 11) At the top of the Capitulum there was some beautiful pink and blue marble from Africa.






After I caught my breath from climbing all of the stairs of the Capitulum, I turned around and snapped this shot. (Pic 12)











Here is picture behind the bar of one of their restaurants. (Pic 13)








You can still imagine all the treats that were probably lined up on these shelves...olives, wine etc. (Pic 14)










Here is the grand entrance to the main thermal baths. (Pic 15)











It isn't hard to imagine bathers resting on this bench in this hot room. (Pic 16) Women also used the thermal baths. They found many bone pins used to put up their hair.




Tourists walking down the main drag. (Pic 17) I have to admit. I did learn to walk in high heels on Italy's cobblestones but my feet still haven't gotten used to walking on cobblestones day after day after day...and I've done a lot of walking!









A beautiful winged goddess...she actually has on battle gear including a helmet. She must have been a tough cookie! (Pic 18)









(Pic 18 & 19) shows some of the statues.

Milan....

I have heard various opinions of Milan from many Italians so I decided to hop on the train and see for myself. I have to say...Milan does have a different feel to it than any other city I have been to in Italy. Sometimes I felt as if I could have been at Wall Street in NYC...just with prettier buildings.







(Pic 1) shows the inside of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II off Piazza del Duomo. It was a very old and beautiful indoor/outdoor shopping mall.



(Pic 2) shows the outside of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.






(Pic 3) shows me stepping on the genitals of the Bull (horoscope sign) on the floor of the inside of Galleria VE. They say it is for good luck. Uh, uh, uh....what we tourists do for a pretty picture! Ha Ha









(Pic 4) shows a group of older Italians in a heated discussion in Piazza della Scala. For a minute they got in each other's faces...it wasn't pretty. I did hear "Bush" and Gli Americani" thrown in there here and there. I just kept on people watching and minding my own business. (wink)








(Pic 5) shows Teatro alla Scala, the world famous opera house.








(Pic 6) shows the the Banca Commerciale Italia building and statue of Leonardo da Vinci in Piazza Della Scala.







(Pic 7) shows the equestrian statue of Vittorio Emanuel in Piazza del Duomo. I sat here enjoying a cold lemon drink and people watching for a while. A street vendor gave me a "good luck" bracelet for free because he said I smiled and spoke nicely to him.




Speaking of Leonardo di Vinci....I went to Santa Maria delle Grazia (Pic 8) to see Il Cenacolo Vinciano (Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper). OK...You didn't hear this from me....but I didn't have a reservation. As only ~20 visitors at a time can see the painting for about 15 minutes the tickets are booked months in advance. I am one to follow rules but I saw on the internet where you can go on the city's tour of the city and a visit to the Last Supper is included in the price but you can't make a reservation...you just have to


show up at a certain time. Well I showed up and they said that they changed the policy and you had to make a reservation for the tour too. I wasn't happy. She said they don't let anyone see it without a reservation. I thought...well, I'm here...I might as well try. I hopped in a taxi and told the driver to go to Santa Maria delle Grazie. I asked him and he said he had never heard of anyone seeing it without a reservation. I get there and they said it was booked up completely for the next two weeks. I watched as the people behind the desk told tourists after tourists that no tickets were available...they were booked completely for 2 weeks. They didn't even have 1 ticket available.

I get up to the desk and the lady says, sorry...no tickets available but I can reserve now for 2 weeks from now. She brushes me off then I look at the guy next to her and in my very best Italian I tell him that I really wanted to see the painting and I leave at 5pm that day and I was very disappointed....OK..OK...there was a little bit of eyelash batting but what I said was all true. He smiled and told me to wait over to the side. I waited patiently for about 45 minutes and I was able to see it. It is larger than I thought. I didn't realize it was on an entire wall of the dining hall where the monks ate. As Leonardo didn't follow the process for frescoes and experimented, the painting is deteriorating quickly. There are quite a few gaps from where the paint peeled off. There have been several attempts at restoration. You have to pass air locks to see it in an attempt
to slow the deterioration. It is a beautiful painting...I wish I could have seen it before all of the "restoration". One of the adjacent walls was completely rebuilt when it was demolished in the war. Jesus' feet are missing because someone had the bright idea of raising a door underneath it and it cut off his feet. On the opposite side of the room is a fresco of The Crucifixion. Leonardo really tells the story with the gestures of the subjects. If really is something to see.

(Pic 9) is one of the most striking frescoes I have seen here in Italy. It is of St. Martin by Silvio Consadori. (Pic 10) just shows one of the frescoes damaged in the war. It is disheartening to think about how much damage was caused to churches etc.


(Pic 11) shows the absolutely beautiful Duomo from the side. (Pic 12) shows the Duomo's beautiful....scaffolding! Ha Ha Il Duomo di Milano is the cathedral of Milan in Lombardy. It is the 2nd largest church in the world (next to St. Peter's). It is the 2nd largest Gothic Cathedral (next to Cathedral of Seville in Spain). It took more than 500 years to build.


(Pic 13) shows the most famous piece of artwork in the Duomo. It is the statue of St. Bartholomew. He is shown carrying his own skin (he was flayed to death). You have to see it in person to appreciate how it was anatomically detailed with the muscles, blood vessels etc.









(Pic 14) shows Europe's largest sundial located in the Duomo. The sunlight came from a small hole over one of the stain glass windows on the opposite side of the cathedral. It was accurate too!










(Pic 15) shows one of the panels on the floor for the sundial...Pisces.





(Pic 16) shows a view of the beautiful spires as I walked up (250 stairs) to the terrace. There are 135 spires and 2000 sculptures on the Duomo.







(Pic 17) shows a beautiful view from the roof. I have to admit...I almost didn't make it to the top. As I climbed higher and saw that I was taller than some of the spires, I started to become afraid of heights and my legs got weak. I then saw some elderly ladies up there and had to keep going.




I'm glad I kept going. I walked up the small flight of stairs shown in (Pic 18) and guess what was waiting for me at the top of the stairs????










A statue of St. Zita!!!!! (Pic 19) My patron saint. I chose her because she is the patron saint of housekeepers...in honor of my maternal grandmother. My grandmother, Fannie, was a housekeeper at a young age and when she died she was the supervisor of the entire maintenance department at a government facility. Info about St. Zita is hard to find but she was a young poor Italian housekeeper that gave what she had (not much) to the poor.





I even had the St. Zita ring I had made on. (Pic 20)








(Pic 21) shows the beautiful Trivulzio Candelabrum.











Details of the base can be seen in (Pic 22). If you look closely you can recognize scenes like Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden etc.






(Pic 23) shows a view of the street below the Duomo.









(Pic 24) shows a view of the skyline from the top of the Duomo.

While I was in Milan the city was abuzz with the Calcio (Soccer) championsips. I've always enjoyed ice hockey, football, baseball and basketball but since I've been here I've become a bit of a calcio (soccer) fan. My team is Roma. (Pics 25 & 26)

I hear that Davind Beckham is coming the the States...not bad! (wink)