We leave Rome at 6:20 AM which means we leave the hotel at 4:00 AM. Lufthansa flight LH 243 takes us to Frankfurt then flight LH 490 takes us to Seattle. We should arrive in Seattle at 11:25 AM on Sunday April 10. We then have to clear US Customs.

Correction to Day 8 Rome - Vatican City
The guy with the iPad is Socrates, not Aristotle.

Correction to Day 6: Firenze to San Gimignano to Orvieto
The author is Michele Vossler, not Virginia.

Pompeii, at the base of Mr. Vesuvius, is a three-hour drive from Rome which required an early 7:30 departure and with a hotel located downtown near the Coliseum we did face some early morning traffic. We made our way through the narrow streets while dozens of motor scooters zipped around us like mosquitoes. The morning was beautiful - again - and we packed our sunscreen for our time exploring the ruins the Pompeii.

The trip went quickly and at the halfway point our guide pointed out Monte Casino - the Benedictine Monastery bombed by the Allies during World War II. As in many European countries we enjoyed a stop at an Auto Grill- a collection of cafeteria’s petrol and gift shops set in the midst of the highway.

We arrived in Pompeii right on time and began our tour almost immediately. Mt. Vesuvius was huge - like a big Mt St. Helens and we were all shocked to hear our guide say that before the historic eruption in 79 C.E. it was two or three times higher. It is no wonder the volcano’s explosion covered Pompeii and two other cities! 25 to 30 feet of ash fell on the Roman city and froze it in time and it was not uncovered for 1700 years. The ash hardened into soft stone, preserved an entire city and, now that two-thirds of Pompeii is excavated, we had the chance to walk through this 20,000 person city. Two open air theaters put on concerts and theater productions. Thousands could watch gladiators in the amphitheater. The forum had shops for food, clothing, jewelry, etc. and there were at least two hundred restaurants! We saw the bath houses - ancient work out clubs all inclusive with pools, steam rooms, massage areas and personal lockers. Each home we visited had an atrium to welcome guests, open air courtyards, bedrooms, kitchen, gardens, and places for slaves to sleep. It was not a bad lifestyle, assuming you were not a slave.

Holy Spirit group with Mt. Vesuvius in the background,

On our way back to Rome we stopped in Naples to visit a museum of artifacts from Pompeii. Fred Wicks mentioned that years ago he stopped in Naples as a Navy Midshipman and saw some of the sites but excavations had barely started at Pompeii.

A typical Beware of Dog mosaic from Pompeii on display at the museum.

Tonight we won’t return to Rome until 8:00 PM just when real Italians have their dinners, and the city comes alive with pedestrians. We often split up and go our separate ways to explore the city and enjoy meals on our own. Even Sara and Lilia have had their opportunity to experience the night life of the younger people. Others have had the chance to eat multi-course meals, taste the finest wines, and people watch while sitting at a sidewalk café.

Finally when we return to our hotel in the late evening and ready ourselves for sleep, many of us read one of the devotions Pastor Mike prepared for the trip. Here is the devotion for our day in Pompeii.Devotion

In 79 C.E. Mt Vesuvius erupted and covered the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum with tons of ash and mud, effectively freezing the cities in time. Now, centuries later, we are uncovering these frozen-in-time cities and peering into their world like voyeurs. We can discern what their everyday life like-what they ate, how they lived, where they worked, what they studied, and how they were entertained What if our world was suddenly frozen in time and two thousand years from now a future society looked in on us? Would the future be impressed by our art, architecture, spirit, and learning? Or, would they be appalled by the shallowness of our world? We each have a part to play in our society yet, too often, we live out our lives only as individuals living together We get what we can, protect our immediate family, accomplish our personal goals…and call it good. Do we not want more? Do we not want to be part of a society that soars? The Bible emphasized commitment to community on almost every page. Let us remember our faith is not only something personal….it is communal. We are part of something bigger than ourselves

Prayer

Gracious God, help me trust in your love and give me strength, courage and persistence to engage the world with the talent and skill you have given me. Amen.

Pastor Mike

The trip is full of activities but there is some free time. On the second evening in Rome, my wife Ina and I went to the Forum and the Colosseum which is a few blocks from the hotel. Across the street from the Forum we bought two beers and a box of Ritz crackers from a small food stand. (They did not have any cheese.) There is a two story high wall there so we walk up to watch the sun set. 

The day we had eagerly waited for began very early with another lovely breakfast at 6:30 and boarding the bus at 7:30. Our wise tour guide knew we would be ahead of the morning rush hour and well ahead of the long, long lines waiting to get into the Vatican.

Traveling with a good tour group has proved to be priceless. Our tour director and specific site guides usher us graciously and efficiently. Surely our hosts are treating us better than the ancient and powerful Medici family of Florence and the Emperors of Rome.

Our tour bus crossed the Tiber River, that divides Rome. Then we walked along the outside the ancient Vatican Wall that separates Vatican City from Rome. However, Vatican City is located within the city of Rome. Seeing the magnificent Vatican grounds and buildings, glistening in the early morning sun was breath-taking and surreal.

The dome of Basilica of Saint Peter was designed by Michelangelo.

First we visited the Vatican Museum filled with one of the world’s greatest art collections in the world. The art includes paintings , sculptures, frescoes and tapestry from antiquity and the Renaissance. The treasures are housed in palaces, apartments, and galleries leading to the Sistine Chapel. We walked about a mile inside the museum viewing works by Raphael, Giotto, and the priceless works of Michelangelo.

Raphael‘s “School of Athens”, this portion shows Aristotle reading his iPad.

Michelangelo considered himself an architect and a sculptor, not a painter. However, his ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel proved him to be a gifted painter as well. The technical skills of the frescoes combined with the variety of human emotions evoked are beyond words. His sculpture, The Pita, Mary holding the crucified Jesus, filled the viewers with awe.

St. Peter’s Basilica was our next stop. Again, the ministry, size, and works of art intended to glorify God filled the visitor with a once-in-a lifetime experience.

We enjoyed lunch, shopping, and a bit of a rest before continuing on a drive through more of Rome to our next destination,

The last stop was the Catacombs. Four levels of tunnels and rooms where bodies were placed and sealed in niches. We explored the second level that was 40 feet below ground. It was the official cemetery for Rome’s early Christians and nine of the Third Century Popes, other Bishops of Rome and various martyrs.

Please note Emperor Michael VXII. He may look familiar.

DyAnn Dennie

Our morning started (not too early either) with another wonderful European breakfast…..still working on how to work those coffee machines! The group had a chance to window shop and purchase a few treasures and gifts to carry home, in the shops of Orvieto. Orvieto was an area that all agreed would be relaxing to stay for days. It was a cool night to sleep, and everyone was relaxed.

We boarded the bus and headed south to Rome. We arrived in Rome at 2:30 and met our Rome guide for a guided walk through the city. The Eternal City has lots of sites, fountains, and a lot of people!

The first site was the Spanish steps, with a lot of tourists sitting on them! At the base of the steps, is the Sinking Boat fountain built by Bernini. The water in the fountain is safe to drink, and tourists were filling their water bottles.

We visited the Pantheon, built by the Emperor Hadrian. Inside the building is the tomb of Raphael, with the statue of Madonna and child above his tomb.

The Trevi Fountain was spectacular! There are 24 sprouts going over 30 different types of plants. The sculptures are amazing! The waters from this fountain goes underground, and then bubbles up at our last site of the day, the Piazza Navona.

The Piazza Navona, is an oblong square that retains the original shape of a racetrack built by the Emperor Domitian. There is a beautiful sculpture by Bernini with four river gods, representing the then known four continents in 1650.

We then walked to our chariot…..er….bus, and drove to our hotel, the Palatino. After a delicious meal, we called it a night in our first night in Rome, as we have an early start tomorrow, day eight.

Charlie Newcomer

After a delicious buffet breakfast and Americano coffee served with steamed milk, the group set out for a morning filled with not one, but TWO amazing museums! First stop was the Academy of Fine Arts, filled with sculpture by Michelangelo Buonnarti. We learned about his innovations in the art of sculpture and how he enjoyed dissing his contemporaries. Other sculptors first made their work of art in plaster and took careful measurements before putting chisel to marble. But not Michelangelo: he went straight to work on the marble because he could already envision the final piece of art in his head. Our guides, the Michael and Virginia, explained that he studied anatomy in a clever way to get around Church restrictions on cadaver studies. He was able to arrange for bodies to be disinterred secretly so he could study musculature and the circulation system of the human body. His sculptures therefore brilliantly show muscular subjects complete with bulging veins and highly expressive faces.

The first exhibits at the Academy were of seemingly unfinished sculptures of slaves who partially emerged from their marble slabs: the Bearded Slave, Atlas, the One Awakening, and others. We learned that Michelangelo revolutionized sculpture by introducing these works of art as finished. He could “read” the marble and “feel” a spirituality of the figure inside trying to emerge. His contemporaries understood what he was trying to convey: that people are held back from their full potential by “carrying extra baggage” which, in this case, is shown as rough marble partially swallowing them up while they appear to struggle to get free. This writer sees a sermon opportunity for Pastor Mike!

The grande finale at the Academy was the 14’ high sculpture of David, carved from a single block of Tuscan marble rejected by 2 other well-known sculptors as unworkable for the job. Michelangelo took over 2 years to create David, and finished it in 1504 when he was only 27. After careful scrutiny, the group decided that David’s expression was one of sizing up Goliath before using his slingshot. Our guides also pointed out that David is a bit cross-eyed; the left pupil points out a wee bit too much. (Hopefully you can use this trivia at a social occasion sometime.) Another interesting fact: David stood outside one of the Medici family palaces as a political statement for the first 300 years, that the Italian people were tired of being bullied by the aristocracy and were not going to take it anymore. Well, one day a large bench fell from the balcony of the palace (oops) and broke off David’s arm. It was cleverly repaired and then moved indoors very, very carefully via a ten-day chariot ride.

Then we headed up the street (avoiding numerous cars and bicycles determined to plow through the tourist crowds) to the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi is the world’s best collection ( not biggest, but BEST) of Renaissance oil paintings by the top dogs of the day: Botticelli, Tito, Allori, Manzuoli and more. The most common themes painted were religious renderings of the Annunciation, the Adoration at Christ’s birth, various Madonna and Child scenes, the Crucifixion, the Deposition (taking Christ’s body down from the cross, and depictions of the Trinity. Some oils of Greco-Roman gods/goddesses were also featured, such as the famous Birth of Venus. The group enjoyed one of Michelangelo’s rare oil paintings showing the Holy Family with a very buff Mary who looks like she works out daily at Curves.

We zoomed back to our bus for a ride to our lunch destination in the Umbria region. It was time for a little wine tasting! Our host was the vintner of a 300 year-old family vineyard: the Tenuta Torchiano. We enjoyed sips of 8 (or was it 9?) kinds of white and red Chiantis, and Super-Tuscans (a grape blend). Pastor Mike and Patti discovered that Sara likes white wine. Here the kids start drinking at age 10! We had a wonderful antipasti of cheese, salami, bread in olive oil and, yes, potato chips. This was followed by an old family recipe of Riboletta, a hearty vegetable soup.

Pastor Mike selling indulgences to Ross for too much wine tasting.

Next stop on the bus was the hill-top medieval town of Orvieto, north of Rome. Many things were built of tufa (or tuff in English) which is a rock of volcanic origins that hardens with exposure. This town looked different than the other ones. Our bus climbed 1000’ above the rest of the city to the old part, which has everything you’d expect in a Medieval town: castle turrets and fortress walls, narrow alleys and really old stone rowhouses. Many of us tried local cuisine for dinner (but we passed on the wild boar entree): polenta with ragu (tomato, sausage and onion) topped with shaved cheese. Tomorrow we’ll have a brief time to enjoy Etruscan ruins or one of the ceramic shops of this ancient city before we continue to Rome.

Virginia Vossler

Day five of our journey, began with a more relaxing agenda! After a few days filled with a lot of structure, many of the group slept in. We had a chance to recharge our batteries…so to speak! After a wonderful buffet breakfast, we followed Claudia, our tour guide, to meet our Florence guide for the day, Michael.

Tonight is my turn to write the daily blog for our group, so here goes! We left Padua a very long time ago - actually, it was this morning. We traveled in our bus to Ravenna, through the beautiful Italian countryside, traveling back to the 6^th century, in the 500s. We are beginning to learn about the different regions of Italy, where each region has different geography and different cuisine. In Ravenna, a port city on the Adriatic sea, we learned about a local food specialty, a cheese call squaquaroni, which we ate with parma ham and arugula on a special regional flatbread. It was yummy and worth a try.

But even more importantly, we toured some of the oldest and most beautiful mosaics in the world, the ones in Ravenna dating back to the 500’s. The beauty of the mosaics is certainly beyond description. Our first stop was the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, and the mosaic on the wall above the door showing the Good Shepherd has been with us all the rest of the day. I was so enchanted by this mosaic that I bought the scarf depicting the ceiling shown in the mosaic. But the most important memory of the day will be Pastor Mike’s sermon later in the day, reminding of us of the overwhelming unconditional love of our shepherd, Jesus Christ, as He not only searches for each one of us whenever we seem lost from the path, but that Christ, our Shepherd, desires each of us to be in close community with all the rest of His sheep.

Time does not allow for more description of the wonderful mosaics and the many places we saw them, but our finale in Ravenna was a tour of a studio where artists reconstruct the old mosaics and also make new creations. We are bringing one back to the church to hang with mementoes of other church pilgrimages, so do look for it after we get back.

Finally, we reached Firenze (Florence in English) and were glad to find rest for the night after another wonderful dinner together. Tomorrow will be another day of adventure together. We are near the center of town, and will tour more amazing historic sites in the morning.

 RuthAnn Wilson