9 June Rome

Just getting to the point of being able to write today's entry was completely stressful and full of mistakes. That story is for tomorrow. As for the day you are reading, our intrepid adventures started with a visit to Trevi Fountain. To be honest it was a touristy thing to see and while it was quite a sight, all the other tourists made it underwhelming.

Not to be deterred by my inability to be awed by what had to have been an army of men with chisels and knowledge of how to use them, we found a spot two doors down for breakfast. Expensive by the standards we had been paying, but it was closer to an American style of food with an Italian flair, so there's that.

The Pantheon was not far away from our breakfast spot, so off we went.

The Pantheon has been standing for nearly 1,900 years, which puts our sore feet in perspective. It started as a Roman temple for all the gods, got repurposed as a Christian church in 609 AD, and is now primarily a place where tourists crane their necks and bump into each other. It's doing fine.

The dome is the main event. No glass in the hole at the top, no cover, just open sky. When it rains the floor drains it. The Romans apparently solved weather before we did.

Inside you've got Raphael, the Renaissance painter who died at 37 having accomplished more than most people could in three lifetimes. Rude. There's also the tomb of Vittorio Emanuele II, first king of a unified Italy, labeled "Father of the Fatherland" in case you forgot why he got the good real estate.

The side chapels added over the centuries feature paintings of saints, angels, the Annunciation, and Jesus having a genuinely terrible day in multiple formats. The original Roman walls are underneath all of it, still doing the structural heavy lifting without complaint.

It's a lot to take in. Pagan temple, Christian church, royal mausoleum, art museum. The Pantheon has had more career changes than most people and somehow pulled all of them off.

Both Italy and us PNW natives were getting hot, so we made a quick stop at the AirBnB to rehydrate. I would like to say we cooled off, but the air conditioning in the place was about as effective as me after a good Mexican dinner. Still, it revitalized us and we set off again for lunch. We found a popular spot where a market had basically taken over the block. Our choice had misting fans blowing, which is a low cost way to keep paying customers comfortable. It was Pam's call on what pizza we would share. She picked a pizza with artichoke hearts and thinly sliced hard boiled eggs. It was an interesting experience, and the hard boiled egg would later help with the airflow in the AirBnB. I'll say no more.

We strolled through the market and found some things to bring back home. The real fun stop was a Leonardo da Vinci museum. I only took one picture, of an interactive display where you could build his famous stick bridge. Beyond that there were replicas of the war weapons he designed, flying contraptions, and the like. That man was an absolutely brilliant guy. Also, it was underground, which made it a great way to escape the heat.

We had several hours left before our 5pm tickets to the Sistine Chapel. I scanned the map via Google and found a Vatican garden that looked like it would be fun to visit. That was about the poorest choice we could have made. It was nearing the heat of the day and despite a stop at the AirBnB for a cooldown shower, we headed off anyway. The heat beat us to near exhaustion and for some reason we still could not remember to carry water. You would think that by this point we would have figured that out, and yet there we were, feet hurting, every drop of water in our bodies adding to the humidity of Italy. As we neared the garden the street that would take us there looked like it would need special mountaineering gear to summit, at least to our weary bodies. We turned around. We needed to save our energy for the Sistine Chapel. Back to the AirBnB for a cooling shower, feet rest, and rehydration.

Next stop, the Sistine Chapel, where the lesson of remembering water still eluded us. Despite having tickets it was not wise to get there early. We stood in line with the other early arrivals to bake in the heat, swatting away the deeply tanned vendors who had clearly perfected the art of the tourist shakedown: water, fans, umbrellas, phone chargers, all at prices that suggested they knew exactly how desperate you were.

Finding the Sistine Chapel inside the Vatican Museums is its own adventure. The signs are unhelpful at best and the place is enormous. The strategy we settled on was simple: follow the largest group of humans moving with purpose and hope for the best.

Before we even got close to the chapel we wandered through more than we expected. The Pinacoteca alone could eat your whole day. We saw Raphael's Transfiguration, his last painting, unfinished when he died at 37. His students completed the bottom half. You can look for where the quality shifts if you want to feel smug about something.

The tapestry room had a neat trick. The figures at the bottom of each tapestry appear to follow you as you walk by. Every single one. Try it.

Then the Gallery of Maps. Long hall, floor to ceiling painted maps of Italy from the 1500s. Ignore the maps, look up. The painted ceiling above them is the thing worth craning your neck for.

Eventually, after enough walking to qualify as a small pilgrimage, we found it.

The Sistine Chapel does not disappoint. You walk in, look up, and your brain needs a moment to catch up. Michelangelo painted the ceiling largely alone over four years and reportedly hated every minute of it. Nine panels of Genesis run the length of the ceiling. The Creation of Adam is dead center. The four corner panels each tell a story of deliverance. Then you turn to the altar wall and The Last Judgment hits you. Hundreds of figures, Christ looking genuinely annoyed in the middle, souls going up, souls going down.

Worth every wrong turn getting there.

With Michelangelo's brilliance in our wake, the day ended with my insistence on having carbonara. There was a highly acclaimed place within a discus throw from our lodgings. I can't find the words for how good it was. So creamy, so delicious. So time for bed. We would need it, as my earlier foreshadowing implied.