Roma, day Eight

Our last full day in Rome, we foolishly slept in again and had only four and a half hours in the Vatican museum. The Laocoon is Chaeli's favorite statue in the world, and there was a special exhibit for it. We also saw the famous Torso and so rounded out our education regarding Michelangelo's major influences.



I was very excited also to see the Raphael rooms, and they did not disappoint. We spent at least half an hour in front of the School of Athens ruminating on the academic community, the heritage of such thinkers, and the connection between Raphael's use of colour and his drinking habits.



We made a side trip on the way to the Sistine Chapel down to the rooms of Modern Religious art. We meant to just slip on through and get a general idea of what was there, but some of the art was so beautiful that we ended up spending about an hour down there. Chaeli's camera died at this point (you're not allowed to photograph the Sistine Chapel anyway), so we sketched everything we saw that was interesting. I don't know if the works were genuinely fantastic, or if it was just really refreshing not to be looking at Renaissance art for a bit. But I was absolutely amazed at some of the stuff they had. It was also encouraging to see the very best modern art I had ever seen (and that includes everything I've seen in Chicago and Minneapolis) actually done as efforts of faith, meditation, and Christian spirituality.

And from here we just popped into the Sistine Chapel. :) which also did not disappoint, despite the numerous postcards and calendars I have seen using its images. It was much bigger than I expected. Taller, that is. We were there for more than half an hour, but there is so much to see from every point of reference, that it passed by as though mere minutes. My neck was rather sore from craning so far back.



From here, we met up with our hostel proprieter whose name is Laura. She is from Romania, and speaks very little English, but we went out to dinner with her anyway, and then to the Trevi one last time for some gelato and counting more kisses.