Day 10 – The Pope & The Colosseum

It’s now Wednesday morning, and we have tickets for an “audience with the Pope”.  There’s a service (of sorts) every Wednesday morning and if you can get tickets (in theory) you can get up to where the seating area is in St. Peter’s Square which gives you an excellent view of everything.  The Principal, FIL, Buddy & BIL all get up bright and early and head out to save some seats for the rest of us.  Three of the kids (minus Boo Boo who still has a small fever and just looks worn out), MIL2 and myself will head up there closer to 9am. It’s not scheduled to start until 10:30, but we figure the guys can only hold seats “per mi nonna paralizzata” (for my crippled grandmother) will only be good for about that long – LOL!

 

Around 8:30, the phone rings.  Don’t bother coming.  They’d arrived at 8am and while they got through security, it’s already passed SRO in the center and the surrounding areas are filling up fast.  We’ll never make it. L  So much for the tickets… at least they’re souvenirs, right?

9am – the phone rings again.  Get your shoes on is the new message.  They’ve found “seats” (ie. the steps around the Colonnade by the temporary post office) and they’re pretty sure they can hold seats for us, just be there by 9:45.  WOO HOO!  At least it’s an event.

Grab the tickets, grab the kids, and the 4 of us head out. It’s a brisk walk to the Square… and we arrive apparently at the same time as thousands of others (all MUCH more practiced at the art of pushing & shoving in line) but we make it through.  Unfortunately as we go through security we hear a ROAR go up from the crowd inside… they’re starting early.

We turn the corner and you can see the Pope Mobile making the rounds through the paths of the crowds.  He picks up small children, shakes hands, winds his way in and around with the swell of the crowd following him the whole way.

Between the crowds and translations of everything into 5 languages, we’re getting less out of the actual messages than we did 4-1/2 years ago so after about 45 minutes, the Principal says we can go ahead and leave.  A brisk walk back and I remark that at least the weather was nice, if not chilly.  After what feels like “umpteen days of rain”, this was nice. (Editor's note - it rained for an hour prior to the rest of the gang showing up)

Upon returning home, it appears that Boo Boo is feeling noticeably better, so we get some early lunch… fight with the laundry again and decide to use our tickets for the Colosseum.  Public transportation gets us there again and we’ve apparently missed the last English speaking tour for the underground portion of the monument.  Big Bummer.  Still, we enter in the gate, BIL was NOT impressed with the restrooms (though agreed they were probably better than the originals) and when you walk into the sunshine… it’s impressive.  Not just the scale, but most of the floor is gone, so you can see down to where the animals (et al) were stored below.

We make our way around the Colosseum, and then up the stairs to the next level.  Not even to the level where we would’ve been sitting had we been here nearly 2000 years ago… but high enough. The kids were surprised to hear that this construction wasn’t even begun until Vespasian, and wasn’t completed until Titus… so the apostles (Peter & Paul) wouldn’t have seen it.  AND, contrary to popular mythology, Christians weren’t executed there. Lots of OTHER places… just not at the Colosseum.

On the upper level, they’ve also added a museum of sorts, so the kids don’t feel too badly about missing the actual “animal elevators” since this “kinda” covered it.  Towards the end, though Boo Boo started to feel a little tuckered (not that you would guess it from the photo here) so we headed on home.  He (as well as the others) were so glad that we went, but it was time to head home.  Besides, tonight was a very special night.  Tonight we had 2 Italian ladies come over to show us how to cook:  Squash blossoms, stuffed artichokes, homemade pasta with homemade tomato sauce, non-homemade pasta with homemade pesto sauce, saltimbocca, & “baba a rum”… which I found out later is basically a “strawberry shortcake doughnut pastry complete with rum”  Oh my.  The squash blossoms were by FAR my favorite, though it was all VERY delicious.  They’ll come back on Friday.

 
 
Here's another before/after comparison. Ah... memories. :)