4 down 3 to go

This morning I decided to take a short (approx. 2.5 miles one way) walk to San Paulo Fuori le Mure. Which translates to St. Paul's Outside of the Walls. It is one of the 7 Christian Pilgrimage churches. It was built on top of the burial site of St. Paul. It was the 3rd one I've seen, The first was St.Peter's and the other day during class we stopped into Santa Croce. It was about a 45 minute walk there and Brianne was brave enough to take the trek with me. It is always interesting to walk outside of the Roman walls, because its where the modern city begins, there are less historic buildings and artifacts and everything is a little grittier. When we got there, it wasn't crowded yet because it was about 9:45. We walked around the cloister which has these crazy twisty mosaic columns.


Then we were good architecture students and drew a few sketches. While we were in the cloister we could hear a choir practicing, it was beautiful to listen to the hymns. We made our way inside the Cathedral and wow was it huge. There were no chairs or pews in the majority of the church and it felt like a giant open hall. One cool thing was that around the upper walls of the church were portraits of all the popes. The current pope's picture was lit up. I only counted 12 more blank circles though, I'm not sure what they'll do when they run out of space.


On the walk home we stopped into a bar and got cappuccinos and pastries. They tasted really delicious. The bar was really swanky inside and looks like it turns into a hip place at night. We walked back inside the walls of Rome and then stopped at the Protestant Cemetery. A lot of tourists go there because Shelley and Keats are buried there. It was a gorgeous cemetery, there were plants everywhere and it was on a slight slope, so the graves all stepped up on the hill. At the top of the hill was one of the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen. It was the last sculpture done by W.W.Story, and marks the grave of his wife. The photo below doesn't do it justice, it was very moving to see.


Afterwards I went home to do some laundry since we are going on a field trip next week and I'll need clean clothes. After the laundry was done I set off for my 4th of 7 pilgrimage churches. This one is Sta. Maria Maggiore. I didn't take any pictures of it because the inside was rather gaudy and overdone, and I sketched the outside. It was an interesting church however and I'm glad I went.

A fun little surprise was that right in front of the church a labor strike was going on. There were so many people marching I couldn't believe it. While I was sketching the outside of the church the march was going on close by and I could hear all the noise and action. It was really interesting to witness. This picture is only a small portion of the number of people. From what I saw the crowd stretched for at least 15 blocks if not more, it was hard to tell because they wrapped around a
corner.


nuns:132 priests:68