Rome-ing with Georges: The Vatican: Our Spiritual Home

George finished and turned in his final studio project on Saturday night (he is presenting it today)!! So starting Sunday morning, we have been able to enjoy Rome together! It has been wonderful! Little George is glowing. You can tell he is in 7th heaven now that he has both Mom and Dad playing with him. George is loving being able to really see and enjoy Rome. I am loving being able to see Rome with my husband.

We have been holding off seeing certain things (some of the most important sights to us) since we wanted to see them together. So what are we doing for the next week or so? Seeing those sights!

Of course lots of the Vatican sights are on that list: St. Peter's cupola, the Vatican Museum and the Gardens together. So Sunday morning, we headed to the Vatican for Mass at St. Peter's Altar of the Chair.

After mass we went into Piazza San Pietro for the Angelus! It was Giorgio's first Angelus with the Pope!

In the afternoon, we climbed up to the top of St. Peter's cupola! It was pretty windy up there so we could not stay for long but wow were the views up there amazing! It is our favorite view of Rome!

On Tuesday, we headed over to the Vatican Museums for our tour of the Gardens and then an afternoon in the Museums. We did not know that you could take a tour of the Vatican Gardens, until out of curiosity I looked up the Vatican Gardens online and discovered this tour through the Vatican offices. It was the most amazing sight we have seen while in Italy! Our tour guide was a faithful Catholic, who had a rich knowledge of church history, architecture, art and theology, making for a spectacular tour. Little George was an angel. He just relaxed in his stroller looking around and getting excited about all the beautiful things he saw (particularly the fountains, of course!).

The Casina of Pius VI

The tour guide said this is one of the favorite places of Pope Benedict XVI to go to pray. He also loves animals and he likes to watch the turtles in this fountain.

... and so does Giorgio!

Part of the Casina

The Eagle Fountain.

Statue of St. Peter overlooking St. Peter's basilica

JPII loved cacti and started this collection of cacti in the gardens.

The building where the Governorate is. This is were most of the business takes place. There were lots of the Vatican police outside so our tour guide speculated that Pope Benedict might be inside or expected to arrive soon.

This is the bell that JPII had placed in the Gardens and rang to bring in the Jubilee Year in 2000 and in the background is the tour that was a favorite spot of JPII. After he was shot, he lived in it for a sort period of time.

The garden behind the tower above.

We met the Cardinal Archpriest of St. Peter's, Cardinal Comastri. He blessed Giorgio and then blessed the whole group!

Grotto of Lourdes. The altar is from Lourdes.

A rose garden dedicated to Mary.

After eating a quick lunch in the Cortile Belvedere, we explored the Vatican Museums.

Not too many people were in the museum and the Sistine Chapel, so it made it much easier to pause and appreciate any of the works of art you wanted to. In the past when George or I had visited the Vatican Museums, it was so crowded that you were pushed along by the crowds unable to view with leisure.

St George

Deposition by Caravaggio

Christianity conquers paganism

Dispute over the Holy Sacrament by Raphael

The School of Athens by Raphael (one of my favorites)

We spent almost an hour in the Sistine Chapel! The work is brilliant! There is so much depth in each piece. We spent the entire time just looking at the panels and talking about all of the meaning in each of them. Little George also appreciated the chapel as well. He kept on staring at the Last Judgement. When exiting the Sistine Chapel, we asked if we could go directly to St. Peter's. To get to the basilica, we walked down Bernini's stairs! George was in heaven and little George of course was too since he was walking down all of those stairs!