Vatican-can

Today we headed back to Vatican City, this time with pre-purchased tickets that let us jump all the lines. It's a Disney World fast-pass for Pope Land.  I consider it very similar to the old practice of buying indulgences to get your sorry ass out of purgatory.

The Vatican Museums were amazing, of course. These people have one of the best art collections in the world, and the walls themselves are art, including the best tromp l'oeil I've ever seen (I'm sure that's spelled wrong; the only thing worse than my Italian is my French.)

The Sistine Chapel pretty much failed to impress me. That's not Michelangelo's fault -- more on him later -- so much as the presentation of it. The previous rooms, containing some absolute stunners by Raphael, were well-lit and accessible; you could see Raphael's work in all its incredibleness, and you could walk around the whole room and get close to stuff. Michelangelo's poor Sistine Chapel, on the other hand, is kept dark, partly to protect it and partly to keep visitors from being stupid and using flash photography.  So here's the greatest artwork on earth, and it's hard to see, though some of the brilliance shines through. You have to look up and try to keep walking through the crowd of demented people, and no matter how hard you try, you end up mowing down small Asian ladies because you're too dizzy and disoriented to avoid them.

Speaking of small women, is there a height limit on nuns? Every one I've seen in Rome seems to be about 5' tall.  I feel like a giant around them.

Anyway, the chapel aside, the museums were filled with amazing art. I think it is incredible, though, to look at the difference between Bernini/Michelangelo with their shock-and-awe religion, and Gaudi's works, which are much more a celebration.  Rome is the church that scared the shit out of me as a child. Gaudi's church is the one where you buy donuts and coffee and put on Christmas pageants.

After a stop for some fuel, it was on to Santo Pietro and the basilica that ate a planet. There is enough marble in that place to make a small moon. Of course there are papal tombs all over the inside, including the JP II one that seemed to actually have that horrid incense burning (never could stand that smell).  Off in one corner is the Pieta, the incredible sculpture by Michelangelo. Now here's the deal with M'angelo: he got the commission for the Pieta when he was 23. Know what I was doing at 23?  Perfecting my drunken foosball game at the sports bar on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The mind reels at the talent of this guy, but more importantly, he actually could get commissions, because people cared about art.  And how obsessed did he have to be to do all he did?

There was so much to see that eventually I just lost the ability to take in any more. It's so enormous, and everything is so polished and beautiful, that it kind of knocks out some of your senses. And it blows my mind that people made this to glorify their god. People have some need to build stuff, make stuff, to pronounce that they were here and they loved God a whole lot.  Frankly, I think you could love God by getting your ass outside and planting a tree or helping the poor or tending the sick, but for some people, creating this kick-ass art really does it for them.

There was a Mass going on (they probably could have had four of them at a minimum, but there was just one). Even the recessional walk of the priests was majestic and gave me that familiar, goose-bump feeling...though I think the priests were starting to joke around and be silly about something. You can be all shock and awe, but life is still funny, for petesakes.

We came home and ate some pasta at home (the euros are melting away; gotta back off the restaurants for awhile), and watched Da Vinci Code. After all that religion, I needed some good, old-fashioned American conspiracy theory.

Tomorrow it is back to Barcelona, and while I am delighted to have seen Rome, I can't wait to get the hell out of here. Barcelona feels so much more civilized, easy, and sane.  And there's a chocolate museum that I need to visit.