Maine pilgrims followed a group member carrying the Maine state flag. I have no idea who this guy is in the picture above but my brother Joe carried the flag later during our trip.
Our group went to masses and meetings at the basilica St. Paul's Outside the Walls. We headed to St. Peter's basilica by bus after arriving at St. Paul's from Castulfusano, the place we were staying in on the coast. In order to officially make a pilgrimage for the Holy Year, we Maine pilgrims needed to visit all four of Rome's basilicas. We managed to see two of them on Wednesday. We missed lots of other parts of the city, which made me and fellow chaperones determined to see more of Rome.
Wednesday, August 16
9:26 p.m.
Brian on our visit to St. Peter's without seeing anything else in Rome: "It's like half a hand job. It fucking sucks."
Our day began around 6:30 a.m. getting up for breakfast and our bus ride at 7:30 for Rome. Bread, jam and butter again.
Our first stop was St. Paul's, which is a medieval church (found out later —burned down in the nineteenth century, rebuilt) with a kind of courtyard in front with a giant statue of St. Paul. We waited for a bus, and while there we met a group from California. A couple guys asked me if we fish in Maine. I said we did, in summer and ice fishing in winter. Basically ice fishing is sitting on your ass next to a stove. I told them. They laughed.
Then someone in our group told us to go toward the bus stop. We did, and all sorts of groups started appearing, such as ones from Mexico.
We all managed to squeeze on one bus. It was weird to see the walls of Vatican City — I said "Look at the castle" when it was outside the walls of the city itself. I glimpsed the Colosseum through the bus windows. I wanted to look up and see it all, but only saw a rectangular view. Along with the brickwork holding it together, some columns have metal bands to keep them together. The forum is right nearby, and like a lot of ruins, at a lower ground level than we were.
I saw the Arch of Titus, protected by a fence around it and lots of columns. I wanted to jump off the bus, but I thought I saw the dome of St. Peter's too, one of two false alarms for the day. Rome has many domed churches, and St. Peter's is tough to see. I imagined it looming above the landscape like Capitol Hill in Washington. It doesn't. It sneaks up on you.
We passed the entrance to St. Peter's Square and I saw the dome. We stopped on a street nearby and walked toward the entrance.
Music played over speakers and would continue while we walked through the square and into St. Peter's Basilica ("Emmanuel," World Youth Day's theme).
I took many photos of St. Peter's and the square as we approached the entrance. The square looked small, but we spotted people on the steps of St. Peter's who looked really tiny. I could not believe seeing people on the dome of St. Peter's who looked even smaller.
I kept saying "I can't believe I'm here" and exhaled. We were corralled into an entrance that went around the obelisk in the square. I had hoped to see Egyptian hieroglyphics on it. Instead I saw Latin inscriptions on the base. Andrew and I tried to translate and figured out one year listed was 1564.
Flags from all nations around the world hung on Bernini's colonnade. Other youth groups sat in the shade of the columns.
My World Youth Day group from Maine. Everyone with us wore bright orange t-shirts to help us not get lost from one another at big events. I had two of the shirts, one of which I later traded for a blue Italian World Youth Day t-shirt.
We ascended a stone ramp in front of St. Peter's, which I didn't know existed. A handicapped-accessible basilica. Good. A small garden of flowers was at the steps. We were continually moved ahead by people in blue t-shirts, jubilee volunteers.
I entered the portico and could not believe how high its ceiling was. We all looked up, inside the place where the pope waves to everyone.
The lights inside the basilica were off. I did spot Bernini's canopy, where the pope celebrates mass.
I have always wanted to look at that, and the place in Rome where I most wanted to be was under the dome, looking at the canopy. We kept moving along, though, so I couldn't ponder much.
Michelangelo's Pieta stood behind bulletproof glass to our far right. Joe took a picture and I wanted to take a closer look. A guide told us in English we couldn't. We had to keep moving. So we did.
I took a picture of a statue of St. Teresa [of Avila], one of the huge statues in the pillars of the church. I laughed for a few reasons. First, when I was a guide at Victoria Mansion [a house museum in Portland, Maine], I constantly told people not to take pictures, saying how the flashes fade paintings and frescoes. And I was doing it. Because I wanted to remember.
Another reason I laughed was because of the huge paintings I saw. I said "They're real." [I found out later that most of the paintings inside were mosaic replicas]
I did not take a closer look because of the continuing movement of people, even though I wanted to take a look at Bernini's tabernacle at the side of the basilica.
A French lady asked me to take a picture for her as we walked along. It took a moment because I had to press the shutter very quickly. She thanked me in English.
Joe took my picture with the canopy in the background. I took a number of shots of the canopy and one of the ceiling. I stopped, looked up for a few moments, thanked God I was there and moved on.
After rounding the corner in front of the canopy, the pace picked up. I blessed myself with holy water from some basin flanked by giant marble cherubs.
Once we got off the steps of St. Peter's, we stood in the shade of the columns waiting while the rest of the group came outside. We drank water and said hello to a group from Alaska. A person waved the state flag as they walked by us.
Maine pilgrims in front of a column and with a distant view.
I really did not want to go anywhere. I wanted to sit in the shade of the colonnade, watch people go by and write. It was around 11 o'clock and we were thinking about lunch.
While crossing the Tiber, I saw Castel Sant'Angelo, a papal castle. I could not believe how close it was to us. Deacon Steve wanted to visit that. We saw people on the roof next to a massive statue of St. Michael the Archangel. I snapped a picture of the Tiber because it was the river I had read so much about in Latin class, even though it was green from algae blooms.
We stopped to have some gelato around 11:30 a.m. I had frulatti, a mix of two ice creams and soda, which cost 3,000 lire [the exchange rate was roughly 2,000 lire to a dollar]. A restaurant next door opened at noon, so we waited until it opened, looking at menus.
Joe got an olive pizza. The Roman version has a very thin crust and a light tomato sauce. I ordered antipasto vegetale, zucchini, potatoes, mushrooms and yellow peppers sauteed in olive oil with some vinegar and tomato sauce. I can't believe I am writing about my meal. Still, it's real Italian food, and surprising.
Our table's bill came to 105,000 lire and Ben paid for it with his credit card. We paid him back.
When we arrived at St. Paul's from our bus ride, I did make my pilgrimage inside. People attended confession in the church confessionals, although in one case a person knelt outside while talking to a friar who sat in the middle of the booth with no screen in front of him, making him look like a ticket vendor.
I saw lots of friars in Rome, some in brown robes or gray. Priests wore black shirts and Roman collars, with blue shirts or even white. Nuns wore white or black habits and veils like St. Carol did in the Sisters of Mercy [my great aunt who died in 1993].
I even saw some man in a brown robe with a tonsure. In his case it was a thin ring of hair around his head.
Brian fell asleep on the ride back and had his head on my shoulder. He apologized and recalled how he did it in a bus station before.
Random notes — St. Peter's was dark and cool with its stone walls and pillars, a relief from the outside. I could feel the air moving above my head.
I had wondered what the place would smell like, as if it would be musty like an attic. It wasn't. With all the air circulating it didn't have a particular smell.
We had a prayer service tonight and the same time we started music began blaring from the camp disco. "Surfing USA" competed with our praying.
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