rome-vatican city, st peters, trevi fountain

DAY 24 MONDAY JULY 18

Vatican city. We were warned that the lines were so long that some people never got in, but we seemed to be in luck because we stood in line for less than an hour.

Throughout this trip the three of us were spending a great deal of time contemplating the history of the church and of our faith. Daniel was in the middle of reading "The History of Christianity" and Bryan was reading "Te Deum", which focuses on church music in history (nothing like a little light reading). I wasn't reading anything, but was contemplating the artists that created all that we were seeing, their lives, the politics that they dealt with, and what that must have been like. Having been in the thick of ministry and seeing our fair share of politics, it was intriguing to take a stroll through history and see things from the very beginning. A lot of what we saw and learned was sobering. Like learning that the beautiful ceilings in St. Peter's were lined with the gold from Spain's first conquests of Peru. Makes you kind of sick to your stomach.

Inside St Peter's.

Seeing Michelangelo's Pieta was another one of those knock-the-wind-out-of-you sort of experiences. Having spent so much of his life's work here, this place seemed to whisper his name at every turn. Bryan, Daniel and I marveled at the fact that he created this at age 25. It was both comforting and disturbing that this masterpiece is now behind bulletproof glass.

Trevi Fountain.

In 19BC Agrippa decided to build a long canal to bring spring water to rome. In 1732 Clement XII comissioned Nicola Salvi to create this fountain to adorn the end of the canal. The sculpture(according to the trusty green guide that I am plagarizing at this moment) represents Salubrity and Abundance with the center figure representing the Ocean riding in a chariot. This is where people came to get their drinking water. While at this fountain we noticed police flanking it. Whenever someone tried to stick a toe in the water they blew a whistle!

Rome still has natural spring water that constantly flows from fountains all over the city. While walking on this very very hot day we noticed one of these small fountains as a policeman in full uniform, walked up to it, stuck his mouth under it and took a drink. We had seen others drink from the fountains but were a little dubious until this point. Hot and parched I figured, "hey, when in rome..." and had a drink. The next day our guide informed us that water is still rome's greatest resource. You buy one bottle of water and when it is empty you simply keep refilling it all over the city. The water comes out of the fountains cold, clear and sweet. What a great resource!

Tourist crowd at Trevi.

While walking we bump into the president's house. Flanking this balcony is St. Peter and St. Paul.