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| St. Peter's Square |
Sunday was a disaster. We got the clean, quick and cheap (1 Euro per journey) underground train (Metro – the sign is a large M in red) to the Ottoviano stop and found our way, largely by following the herds of other tourists and actual Italians to St. Peter’s Square and the Vatican.
You’ve got to give it to the Catholic church, they know what looks good in terms of buildings and seemingly have done for a long, long time and St Peter’s was no exception.
The huge cobbled court yard, in the midst of the huge, pillared circle is very impressive, as is the Basilica itself, from the outside. I’m sure it looks very nice from the inside too, my wife assures me it was, only I didn’t get the chance to find out. Just as I had one foot over the threshold, a shake of the head and a dismissive flick of the wrist from the guard and I was ushered away and out of the queue. I was not allowed in. Upon further inspection my shorts went against the dress code. Strange how none of the guide books mentioned this fact.
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| St. Peter's Cathedral |
Still, at least the Sistine Chapel would be good. Wrong. Once again, I didn’t get to see it, only this time, I wasn’t alone. Nobody could get in as it wasn’t open, again, something none of the guidebooks seemed able to mention.
It was at this point, and again over a lunch time beer that a strange fatigue seemed to set in. We couldn’t have seen more if we’d tried. We’d seen the Basilica Di Santa Maria Maggiore, a wonderfully domed church with extravagantly ornate ceilings and knaves, the Castel Saint Angelo, Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum and the home to countless Popes, on top of everything else, but it seemed like we’d seen only a fraction of what Rome had to offer. We’d missed the wonderful museums, art galleries and countless other Roman attractions such as the Circo Massimo where the Romans used to race chariots, but by this point we’d gained countless blisters and lost the will to “do the sights” any more. We’d almost OD’d on culture. Not that we wanted to sit in a room and watch MTV whilst chowing down on a McDonald’s or KFC you understand, but we wanted to take it easy and relax. And this is the dichotomy with Rome, there is almost too much to see. Upon landing, you are effectively entering into a living, breathing museum/tourist attraction/theme park that would necessitate you spending years there to take it all in.
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