We first had a nice lunch because all that traveling builds up an appetite. I got pasta, of course, but it was really good, of course. Interesting thing we noticed at lunch was that every table was speaking French and this was a theme for the whole day actually, I guess it's no surprise that the French like their gardens and fountains. There actually isn't too much to blog about. There was a ton of stuff there and the Villa D'este palace was enormous but it was all fountains and gardens. Also, inside was a museum/exhibition on a famous composer (I forget his name) who lived there at the villa. We mostly spent the whole time taking funny pictures and goofing around acting like the college kids we are. There was a cool water organ fountain that played a song. There was also a crazy wall of fountains with literally hundreds and then tons and tons of statues. Anyways, here's some of my favorite pictures from the day.
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| Doing my Pegasus impression |
After Villa d'Este, we walked around the town for a bit before getting on the bus back to Rome which we all slept on. Once we got back to Rome we went exploring around Testaccio since we've never really done that during the day yet. Pretty neat area, reminded me a lot of Monte Verde, the residential area I live in. We got dinner at a good restaurant, I had an amazing Saltimbocca alla Romana. After that we took the bus downtown and went and got gelato at the Gilioti place near the Pantheon then just walked around Rome at night before coming home. We all noticed that that was the most crowded we had ever seen the tourist areas at night. Glad I'm getting out away from all the tourists soon.
On the tram home after they had gotten off I had a nice conversation with two random Italian ladies sitting next to me. They were trying to figure out which stop San Giovanni di Dio was on the tram. Not that I was trying to ease-drop or anything but I enjoy trying to listen to other people's conversations just for the purpose of seeing if I can understand them. Anyways, I figured I'd help out so I piped in and told them when to get off and they were very happy. They thought from my Italian accent that I was British (score: finally I wasn't immediately deemed an American) which is at least part of Europe so I was happy about that. They were excited to hear what I thought about the Royal Wedding that had happened earlier that day but to their dismay I didn't watch it. They told me I spoke better Italian than any other American they had ever met on the tram so another point for me! Later that night I went out with some friends to Trastevere to a couple different bars and had a great time. Got back around 2:30am so I turned on the O's game and the NFL Draft which had just started and then crashed around 5am. (SO excited about Torrey Smith) All in all, between Tivoli, going out, and everything in between, that was one of my best full days in awhile, but I guess it's hard not to have a great day when you were awake for 21 hours of it, ha.
Saturday was a different story. I woke up after Noon, didn't even get showered until 6pm and was laying back in bed again by 11pm ha. I worked on my Bodies and Burials archaeology paper most of the day, only taking a break to go to Pizza e Pasta for the next days breakfast. I did this because I was planning on getting up at a ridiculous early hour to go down and join the masses for the Beatification of John Paul II.Sunday didn't start quite as early as I had wished. I pushed the snooze button a couple times, which is something I never do but before I knew it, it was already 6am. I ate my refrigerated pizza and got ready for whatever the day would bring. All night long, the Roman transit website had been publishing updates on traffic flow and judging by the fact that it said things weren't horrendous I didn't think there would be many people. Some news outlets were estimating an approximate 200,000 people would should up to the Beatification ceremony, which was as many as were at the Rally for Sanity in DC. Other outlets were predicting numbers near 3 and 4 million like they had for John Paul II's funeral in 2005. So I really had no clue what to expect.
I took a relatively empty tram down to the river stop and then realized the day would be crazy. All along the river were herds of people swarming up north towards the Vatican. There was an army of ATAC buses parked along the side of the street pulling up empty, being filled in a matter of seconds and then taking off up the lungoteverer road. 
I was amazed though at how efficiently things were running, considering this is Rome we're talking about. I waited about 30 seconds before a bus was zipping me up the road and dumped me off near the bridge south of Ponte Umberto and Ponte Angelo (which are the two main bridges for getting into the Vatican - they were closed off, even to foot traffic. See picture on left. Hopefully all those people waiting there at the rails realized that all they had to do was walk south a bridge and then cross there..I don't even want to imagine how long the pile up of people went back there. Anyways, I walked around the area for a bit which had the feeling of a huge festival. Trash, food, drinks, newspapers, tents, smell of urine, was all over the place. Undoubtedly the biggest crowd of people I've ever been in, estimates are that there was around 1,500,000 people there Sunday. Madness. |
| Prime real estate spot after my cunning plan worked |
After trying to get a standing spot on Via Della Conciliazione (the main road leading up to St. Peter's), I realized that would be impossible from where I was so I bailed out and looped down, across the river, up the river, past the Vatican, then crossed the river at the bridge north of it. In the process I ran into Michelle and Jen completely unexpected, what are the odds of that. Yet, what were the odds of me running into Jess at the Vatican unplanned for Easter? Something magical about that place I guess. Anyways, you might be wondering why I did all that walking and looping around. Well, let me tell you. Almost everyone was coming from the bus drop off area which was south of the Vatican, rarely do people come from north of it. I noticed that the northern side of the road to St Peter's was not as deeply filled with people as my side. I knew I only had 2 hours until the ceremony started so I figured I'd give it a try. 45+ minutes later of walking, I finally made it to the other side of the street that I had just been standing on, no more than 40 feet away from where I had been. However, my plan worked, and now I was situated right at the end of the road, facing St Peter's while watching all the people back where I was still around the corner unable to get onto Via della Conciliazione! Bravo Michael! If I zoomed in all the way with my camera I could see the altar and the pope! But they also had those jumbo-trons set up, like the one on the left in this picture, which made it much easier to see and hear what was going on.The mass started an hour after I had started standing there, and it went on for 3 more hours. That's a lot of standing in a packed crowd. Five different people near me fainted and had to be taken out by stretcher by the medics who were overworked and underrepresented. Every 5 minutes you would see a pocket of people in the crowd start waving there hands and screaming for a medic, but then of course it would take them another 5 minutes to actually move through the crowd to where the people were. It was a hot day. They were handing out free waters and food though by just sending out 6 packs of water and having the crowd crowd-surf them back. That was nice, I alone went through 4 bottles of water while standing there and still felt drowsy in need of sleep, food and water. Personal space didn't exist, there were bodies slammed up against me on every side for the whole time. The worst was one an ambulance had to get through which basically meant that you were guaranteed to get squashed, I tried to use my height to poke my head above the short Italians for some fresh air but even that was tough. Tensions were rising around me and people were starting to shove and shout a little too forcefully. Thankfully, once the ceremony started at 10am everyone seemed to simmer down.
Lots of Polish flags waving, lots of them. Someone said that almost a third of the people there were from Poland. (John Paul II was Polish) The ceremony was very long, like I said, about 3 hours. The procession in of the Pope, Cardinals etc took about 20-30 minutes alone. There were dignitaries, presidents, kings and ministers there from all over the world, including Mugabe who I thought was banned from the EU, but that little piece of land the Vatican owns isn't considered the EU. It was mainly in Italian, which I was able to semi-follow, but there were a few instances when they said things in multiple languages. It started out giving a long narrative of the life of John Paul II, followed by readings from the Bible, a homily, Eucharist then finally the beatification ceremony. That picture there was taken after Pope Benedict proclaimed him officially beatified. They had a vile of his blood out on top of his wooden coffin and then they unveiled a massive banner of him hanging in the square. Each part of the mass of course took longer than normal. It went by quicker than I thought that a 3 hour mass standing in the hot sun would go though.
After it ended, I hung around for a bit to watch the procession into St Peter's where his coffin was placed on the high altar for veneration. After all the VIP's went, they were going to let regular people in, but that wouldn't be for another few hours and the line would be hours long so I decided I had had enough for the day. I wandered up and down the slowly emptying Via della Conciliazione and almost made it to the square but it was still physically impossible to get in there because of so many people. Instead of trying to deal with heading back towards the river where the million people were all attempting to get on buses at the same time, I decided to walk the back roads for about 30 minutes to the tram stop by the river that would take me back to my place. Again, I got on an empty tram and road it back home. I guess that shows how little amount of local people went to this thing and that it was pretty much all tourists.I don't think I'll ever experience something like that again. 1.5 million peacefully people praying together in unison all in the same place all for the same reason. Pretty incredible if you ask me.
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