Rome, day 2

Vatican, Pantheon and a very lovely dinner

21.08.2024 33 °C

Thanks to Jess’ ability to forward-plan enough to actually book things, we had 8am tickets to visit the Vatican. Rome is still asleep at 7:30 on a Wednesday morning, which meant that we could still arrive on time, despite running late and having a little wild goose chase to find a second e-bike.

The line to get into the Vatican was enormous. 20,000 people visit each day, which really is quite the crowd. The stairs to enter the museum were decorated with indigenous articles from around the world. Let’s just hope that they were willingly donated.

The next section was Egyptian, morphing into Middle Eastern and then Ancient Greek works. We both felt pretty uneasy about the way that mummified bodies were on display, with no way of affirming their consent to eternal exposure to hoards of people. I really feel like the dozens of layers around mummies are a fairly explicit request for them to be left alone. A nearby tour guide argued that ‘we are keeping [the artefacts] safe’ which sounds innocent enough, except that if it weren’t for centuries of Western pillaging and oppression, most of the homelands of these pieces would be more intact to this day.

On the other hand, it was incredible to see Syrian and Palestinian pottery from up to 10,000 years ago - that is, since the dawn of agriculture. Examples of early texts (plus a Crusades cross?!) carved into stone demonstrate how clearly structured the written word was, even in those comparatively early days.

As always, the art involving animals was excellent (there were “stacks” of it) (sorry)

Jess was a fan of the giant baths, this early globe and the spiral staircase

We had thought about trying to enter the biggest cathedral in the world, but because the Pope addresses the crowd on Wednesdays, the queue to get in was wrapping around the whole of Piazza San Pietro. We decided to just exclaim ‘wow big church’ from the outside, and be done with it.

Across the river, we intentionally walked to the Pantheon, this time. We’ve accidentally walked past the Pantheon, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountaun twice each - when in Rome?

Jess has a running joke that I (33) look younger than her (26) because people always check my ID when I buy alcohol, but she is never carded. To confirm this, the Pantheon ticket vendor asked us if either of us were under 25, and stared at me whilst he said it. Maybe he thought she was my mother.

The Pantheon is as wonderful as I remember. The current temple was built in the second century AD to worship Roman deities, although it was been affiliated to Catholicism since the 7th century. As such, it has been in continuous use for nearly 2,000 years - making it the oldest functioning building in the world. Notably, it has never required reinforcement. So when the Colosseum fell into disrepair, its iron reinforcement was looted, making it vulnerable to collapse, when the next earthquake inevitably occurs (thus why it collapsed). The Pantheon’s sound design is therefore integral to its longevity, in multiple senses.

The dome is built such that a perfect sphere 44.4x44.4m (makes more sense in Roman feet) can fit inside it. The base levels of the building are incredibly thick and dense, whilst the highest point is relatively thin, and made of pumice. I think it’s incredible that they could build a dome without a keystone, two thousand years ago - or even today.

Exhausted from the crowds and heat, we shared a burrata on lettuce and tomatoes and hid away at the hostel for an afternoon siesta.

Thanks to Meg Glass’ recommendations and Rob and Ana’s honeymoon gift of a nice dinner, our final night in Rome was date night, at CiPASSO. We went all out and got a beautiful bottle of natural sparkling wine from Lazio, followed by chef-made burrata and scallops for entrees, fig pasta and fish for mains, and a chocolate situation and panna cotta for dessert (but you need to know - the tiny meringue on top of the stewed apricot, pistachios and panna cotta was thyme flavoured. Phenomenal.)