Rome: Tuesday

Tuesday morning we made a quick trip to St. Peter's Basilica before meeting up with our tour group. We snapped a few pictures and then hopped on the metro to meet the group.

                                                                                               the Pieta by Michaelangelo

                            a unicorn!                                                            statue of St. Peter

 tomb of St. Peter

                        painting of the Assumption                                the Baptismal Font

Swiss Guard

The next stop on our whirlwind tour was the Papal Gardens. We took a bus for a ride outside the city to Castel Gandolfo. We had an Italian tour guide who walked us through the gardens and described the major parts. The gardens have only been open to the public for 2 years so it was something that Brannon and I had not seen before. Madeleine also practiced taking pictures of some of the beautiful flowers in the garden while we were there.

The gardens occupy the site of a residence of the Roman Emperor Domitian (emperor of Rome from 81-96 AD). The palace was designed by Swiss-Italianarchitect Carlo Maderno for Pope Urban VIII. Popes have used the properties as a summer residence and vacation retreat, except for the years between 1870 and 1929 when the popes, in dispute with Italy over territorial claims, did not leave Vatican City. Pope Pius XI had the facilities modernized and began using the retreat again in 1934. In accordance with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the palace and the adjoining Villa Barberini added to the complex by Pope Pius XI are extraterritorial properties of the Holy See.

During World War II, an unknown number of Jewish refugees took shelter at the palace under the protection of the Holy See and many people used the site as a refuge from Allied bombing raids in 1944, though more than 500 people died in one such attack.

ancient theater from 1st century AD

                        baths of Emperor Domitian                              500 year old Italian oak

sitting on the bench Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI used

carp presented to the Pope from the Japanese

                       

 After we finished our tour of the gardens, we stopped for lunch overlooking Lake Albano. Lake Albano is a small volcanic crater lake in the Alban Hills of Lazio, at the foot of Monte Cavo, 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Rome. The view was spectacular and the food was delicious! It rained for a short time while we were dining on the terrace, but we stayed dry and enjoyed watching the clouds pass over the lake.

After lunch we attended the semester closing Mass with the UD students at a small church in Albano. We then traveled to the UD campus by bus for a tour of the campus and dinner with the students. Dinner was followed by a fireworks show over the vineyard and a cake of the 7 hills of Rome for all the students who leave campus on Wednesday to return home. I realized during the closing speeches after the Mass that it was 20 years ago that I was attending the closing ceremonies of my Rome semester. It doesn't seem like it has been that long!