Rome, Day 3, Part 2

After a nice, long afternoon rest, we met up in the hotel lobby to begin our evening adventure. Our focus for the evening was the Trastevere neighborhood, just across the river from our hotel.

Our first stop in Trastevere was the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The church has great mosaics, including one with Mary and Jesus together, as if they are both in charge of things.

Then, we wandered off to our restaurant for the evening, a lovely place near the edge of Trastevere. I had the seafood risotto. After dinner we shared a delicious cheese plate (see below) and some limoncello.

During dinner, we worked on our lists of the day-- The Good, The Scroll of Disappointments, The Questions and Other

The Good
1. The Sunrise! And the quiet of early morning in Rome.
2. The assembling of the tour group was interesting and fun, as we introduced ourselves to each other and figured out where everyone was from and why they were in Rome.
3. Getting whisked into the Vatican Museums in a matter of minutes!
4. The Pinecone

5. The Pancakes.
6. No crowds
7. The Hall of Maps

8. The School of Athens

9. The Circular Staircase (for Jenny and Deedie)

10. Jenny really liked the Sistine Chapel, with its intimacy and sense of connection, made even better by the relatively low number of people who were sharing the experience.

11. The Cheese Course!

The Scroll of Disappointments
1. The Missing Belvedere Apollo (under restoration)
2. Why are we not talking about The Slaughter of the Innocents (see Vatican Museums post)?
3. The Circular staircase (Susan)

4. We moved too quickly through the modern art in the apartments.

5. The Sistine Chapel (Susan)-- too male-dominated, in all sorts of ways
6. Size comparisons, cathedral style. In the center of St. Peter's, on the floor, there's a set of markings that show the lengths of other large cathedrals from around the world. This display is meant to emphasize that St. Peter's is the largest of all. Um, do I need to say more about this?
7. The restaurant where we had dinner had no sweet vermouth for Jenny's Negroni marathon.

The Questions
1. How could the most annoying couple in our Vatican tour group be from Canada?
2. Why did the tour people emphasize how great it was to "surprise" us with breakfast? We wish we had known. We wouldn't have wolfed down a few items we got from the hotel before we left.
3. What's up with MIchelangelo's approach to the male form?
4. Shouldn't the Vatican have some sort of recognition of the sex abuse of children?
5. Where are the Roman cocktails?
6. When is a joke not so much a joke, but really a gag?

Other
Keep a Safety Distance!

And, watch out for "Sexy Knees." Our Vatican tour guide examined all of the men on the tour who were wearing shorts, to determine if they would not be allowed into St. Peter's because of the exposure of their "sexy knees." On the one hand, this seemed weird. On the other hand, I was glad that the examination of the clothing wasn't completely focused on the women, as it usually is.

Ciao for now!