Il secondo giorno.
We hit the bakery, and upon request, one of the other members of the trip was the navigator for the day. Completely fine with me. Now I had more time to enjoy my surroundings and snap those little spots I would’ve otherwise missed in search of the ‘normal sights’.
All the metro talks seemed to have disappeared with a good night’s sleep. *chuckles*
Imagine that.
Eventually, we got to the Vatican seeing as our navigator got us lost.
Not as easy as it looks. (sorry, that was petty).
HISTORY LESSON
Vatican City State was founded following the signing of the Lateran Pacts between the Holy See and Italy on February 11th 1929. These were ratified on June 7th 1929. Its nature as a sovereign State distinct from the Holy See is universally recognized under international law. The Pontifical Military Corps, except for the Swiss Guard, was disbanded by will of Pope Paul VI, as expressed in a letter of September 14th 1970. The Gendarme Corps of Vatican City State is responsible for all police activities and answers to the State Authority. It is a civil, not a military, organization.
The Vatican tour was 35€ and the line was madddddddd long. So the impatient split from the patient and we headed into St. Peter’s Basilica. Ohhhhhh the architecture in that place. W H E W!
HISTORY LESSON
In the early fourth century Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, decided to build a basilica on Vatican Hill at the site of small shrine that marked the likely location of the tomb of St. Peter. Construction of the basilica started between 319 and 322. It was consecrated in 326 AD and finally completed around 349 AD. To facilitate the construction, a part of the terrain was leveled and the necropolis where St. Peter was originally buried was demolished.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, the basilica was falling into ruin and pope Nicolas V ordered the restoration and enlargement of the church after plans by Bernardo Rossellino. After Nicolas V died, works were halted.
At the time of Michelangelo’s death in 1564 only the drum of the dome was built. The dome was finally completed in 1590 by Giacomo della Porta. On request of pope Paul V the imposing edifice was extended further into a true Latin cross plan by Carlo Maderno, who completed the main facade in 1614. The church was finally reconsecrated in 1626 by pope Urban VIII, exactly 1300 years after the consecration of the first church.
Now after that stop, Amipa declared that she wanted to head back to the Colosseum because she didn’t get to see eveything and she MAY still have time on her ticket, the ticket we urged her to use to her capacity yesterday cause we were in no rush. Sesame decidds that he’s not with that, so he navigated himself back to the Hostel. Mind you, It’s All Hallows Eve (Halloween), so there were multitudinous options of events to attend.
We got to the Colosseum ANNNDDDD it’s closed. Womp Womp. We did, however, end up taking random selfies with some silver foxes on our journey back. That’s always entertaining at best.
Time to decide the nights plans and everyone wanted to sit on the wi-fi.
W H E T?!
I walked down the street, picked up some pizza because, of course, I was hungry, and I settled in for the night whilst they tried to decided on what to eat for 2 hours.