I’m not a Christian, and certainly not a Catholic. In fact, my beliefs fall pretty much opposite of what anyone could reasonably define as “spiritual,” with the exception that I’m certain there’s a troll living under the Fletcher Dr. bridge. And when it comes to art, my tastes lie with Richard Serra’s monumental, twisted steel plates or Ellsworth Kelly’s radiating colored shapes. Yet despite all of that, the greatest work of art I’ve ever seen, the one that I hope aliens find when they descend upon our dead civilization after following the electromagnetic trail of an ancient Red Lobster commercial, is Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
No photos of the chapel can prepare you for the real thing. Looking at an image of a single panel of the ceiling is like looking at a single frame of a movie, and looking at an image of the whole ceiling is like looking at that movie’s print unspooled across a pool table. The scope of the work just can’t be reproduced in two dimensions. But I’ve just discovered the Vatican’s high-res virtual tour of the chapel, and it comes as close as possible.
More… »
I haven’t posted many pictures of us lately, and since my mother and mother-in-law are the only people still reading this blog and that’s what they want to see, here are a bunch. (We’re having a lovely time in Barcelona, by the way. It’s like New York with LA’s weather.)
-
-
Suomenlinna, Helsinki, FInland
-
-
Narivk, Norway
-
-
Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy
-
-
St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City
-
-
Krakow, Poland
-
-
Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland
-
-
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
-
-
Rome, Italy
Categories: Madejcal Mystery Tour | Tags: around the world, Barcelona, Finland, helsinki, Italy, krakow, narvik, Norway, Poland, Rome, Spain, vatican city, VeniceClick here to comment
My apologies to Civitavecchia which is not in fact the “dingy outskirts of Rome” but actually a rather tony suburb filled with restaurants and hotels and even a block full of carnival games and Italian teenagers. The ferry ticket office, tastefully positioned between the shipping containers and Ms. Bikini beachwear outlet, had enough tickets available not just for us but also for the entirety of the Swiss Guard and their tailors had we happened to bring them along.
The ferry ride itself was pleasant enough, though I was forced to watch most of the video for Sting’s “We’ll be Together” in the ship’s bar. We arrived in Barcelona and over the last four hours have found it to be warm and full of delicious Catalonian food and weird Modernisme architecture and with an easily navigable metro system with ticket machines that are eager to take our money. And that’s all we could ask for.
We just spent three days in Rome, where we saw tan people in aviator sunglasses and leather jackets in the Colosseum, tan people in aviator sunglasses and leather jackets on Palatine Hill, and the part of the Trevi fountain visible between all the tan people in aviator sunglasses and leather jackets.
Also we went to the Vatican and had lunch with the Pope. He let me wear the hat. Turns out it shows you who’s going to Hell. (Sorry, Oprah.)
Now we’re on a commuter train out to the port of Citavicchia. Our original plan had been to head north to Milan and then make our way by train across the south of France to Spain. But it turns out that would be a colossal pain in the ass and that it would be just as easy to get to Spain from Nice by flying home to Pittsburgh then catching a bus.
So instead we’re skipping our return to France altogether and taking an overnight ferry from Italy to Barcelona. Two months ago the thought of missing out on the south of France would’ve seemed crazy to both of us. But after 10+ weeks of travel, we are very willing to flash our lights at France so it’ll pull over at the Roy Rogers and get the fuck out of our way so we can get some paella. So we opted for spending €70 to relax in an en suite cabin across the Mediterranean.
The only catch is that the boat leaves in a few hours and we don’t actually have tickets yet. We know when it leaves and how much it costs and that they supposedly sell tickets at the port — which is way off in the dingy outskirts of Rome. So we’re headed out there in the dark and hoping for the best. Tomorrow we’ll either wake up in Spain or in a tent made of pizza boxes. I’ll let you know.
We arrived in Venice Thursday night with a full moon sparkling on the canals and realized we were in a magical place filled with magical pumpkin dumplings and magical €5 carafes of magical wine, where we drifted to sleep enveloped by magical wallpaper so gaudy that we could hear it. And then we woke up.
In the morning, after finding a $2800 accounting error in the budget (Whoops! No more food this month!) we walked outside to find it pouring rain and windy and freezing. When it rains a lot in Venice the streets flood and walking through the narrow lanes becomes a lot like being flushed down a toilet. We hunkered down in our hotel room and, with the forecast the same for the next day, planned on catching a morning train out of town. We plodded to sleep cursing Jupiter, Al Roker, and all of the other Roman weather gods. And then we woke up.
In the morning, the sun was shining, and the sky was blue. We walked outside and saw the pink light of a maze of a city that for centuries has hidden the hands of saints and the hearts of sculptors. Venice had magically turned into… Venice. We crossed an arched bridge, turned a corner and vanished.
