“But What Did the Floor Look Like?” — My Parents in Italy

The morning of April 1st, my parent arrived in Rome. Meeting them at Termini Station was such a great moment. We walked back to my apartment and I showed them where I’d been living for the past two months. Afterwards, all three of us walked to the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and the Trevi Fountain. Getting to show them the exciting things that littered my backyard was very exciting. We then retrieved their luggage and trekked to our hotel. We attended Mass that evening at a beautiful local church a few blocks from us.

The next morning, we enjoyed the delicious breakfast buffet at our hotel. We walked down the front of St. Peter’s to go on our tour of the Vatican Museum. The museum was probably the most expansive one I’ve been to in Europe. While seeing more statues, paintings, and pottery did not much excite me, hanging with my parents made it a lot more fun.

The “reward” for hiking through the entire museum was seeing the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, I have not a single memory of what its floor looked like. The ceiling was fairly impressive, though.

Afterwards, we walked back and enjoyed our hotel’s outdoor courtyard to relax. We hopped on the Metro and headed to St. John Lateran, one of the four papal basilicas and the seat of the Pope. Good Friday service was a grandiose event, as to be expected, attended by deacons, priests, bishops, and cardinals from all over Rome.

After another amazing breakfast the next morning, we once again walked down to St. Peter’s, this time going inside and exploring the amazing cathedral. We walked around the crowded basilica for a while before getting in the long line to head to the cupola, the very top of the dome. An elevator ride and over 300 steps later, we reached the breathtaking (I use that word a lot, don’t I?) summit. As usual, words cannot describe the view, ergo, I took plenty of pictures.

After we walked down, we trotted over to the best gelato place in Rome near the Coliseum and then to St. Mary Major. We found Easter Vigil Mass to be at an acceptably early time, so after changing and relaxing back at the hotel, we came there for yet another impressive Mass, headed up with another great sampling of Church hierarchy.

On our last day in Rome together, we returned to the church we attended Thursday night for Easter Sunday Mass. Afterwards, we hopped the Metro to St. Paul outside the walls, so that we had visited all four papal basilicas.

The day was very relaxing and bittersweet, as my parents were set to leave early the next morning. We had dinner near the Coliseum and then headed back to our hotel. Saying goodbye was difficult, but I’ll be home soon enough.

For more photos of the adventures described here, check out the latest in the “KWC in Rome” set on KWC’s Flickr channel.

 

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