Searching for Paradise

There are moments when you just have to wonder. Is all as it seems?

Is there something else out there? 

Something messing with our lives? 

I mean, for God’s sake, England has just got through to the final of the Rugby World Cup!!! 

This is surely the work of an invisible hand!

In an effort to understand what could be behind the thin curtain of life, that spiritual world that seems forever just out of reach, Annick and I went right to the heart of it. 

Here...

We were in Rome for a few days of romance...

 ...in the City of Opulence and Poverty.

We stayed in a very comfortable air bnb apartment for three nights right in the centre of this amazing city. Amazing for its works of art. Amazing for its rich and oh so long history. Amazing for its food. Amazing for the incredible number of people that you can stuff into one place.
Oh yeah, and the coffee is pretty damned good.

Just outside our triple locked, three entry flat were more grandiose buildings than you could shake a pikestaff at.
Dotted here and there are palaces like this, the Supreme Court:

What you cannot see are the ubiquitous soldiers armed to the teeth and definitely not keen on having their photos snapped.
Next door was the Chiesa Valdese, one of 900 churches swamping Rome.

Somewhat bemused by the overpowering buildings, we headed south..

.. to the river Tiber, only a short walk away.

We passed by the Castel Sant’Angelo...

...and through the graffiti be-speckled streets...

...to the Piazza Navona; for some fountain spotting. The Fontana dei Fuma...

...and the Fontana del Moro. To name but a few...

Oh look, another church...

With all these churches to look at, Annick took to her usual pursuit...

Then we stumbled upon this old building. It seemed quite popular, to try to get a photo of the bloody thing proved a little tricky amongst the teeming masses.
The Pantheon:

We then headed on to the the Trevi fountain, which in all its rich history has had the stand-out moment of appearing in the film ‘Lizzie McGuire’ (so my beloved partner informed me). Yes, it is here that the immortal words “You wanna piece of the Ungermeyer?” were spoken...

We ended that first day with a romantic meal for two in one of the many many restaurants that you can find on every street corner.
An excellent yet exhausting first day in Rome.

The next morning we rose early, eager for salvation. We were heading here:

The Vatican. The infamous ‘Walled City’. 

Here is the planet’s spiritual heart. A heart that beats blood and money...

Surely, of all the cities on earth, Rome must take the biscuit for packing in more tourists per square metre than any other. And the place that all end up is here, in the Vatican. 

Here is the most powerful man on the planet. He and his spiritual ancestors have amassed more power, more riches, more hypocrisy than any others on earth. They edited the Ten Commandments, the eleventh of which is that ‘All mankind must enter into the kingdom of heaven, aka the Vatican.’ Never have I seen more people in such massive queues. Once within this writhing mass of humanity, you are sucked into the portal of heaven, float headlong with all of humanities flotsam and jetsam into its bowels, to be eventually vomited out of its other end. 

Can this really be paradise?

As we flowed through its opulent passageways, all manner of awesome works of art mockingly passed us by. No chance to sit and wonder at this majesty, you have to go with the flow.

Now maybe it’s just my sordid imagination, but there did seem to be be a fixation on the naked male form. This statue seeming to show a certain liking for little boys that seems to be a preoccupation of the Catholic Church.

In the deepest depths of this alimentary system, in its very bowels, is the Sistine Chapel. No photography was allowed, mainly, I think, so as not to put off other people going, so instead I will attempt to describe it.

The Sistine Chapel is clearly an attempt to get into the Guinness book of records by stuffing as many human bodies into one room as is possible. It was a heaving mass of humanity. This is paradise for pickpockets. As all tried to get into the centre of this windowless room, all tried to crane their neck upwards to the ceiling. All crammed together. Perfectly designed for petty crime.
There is something else odd about this room. If you had the greatest painter of all time working for you, where would you get him to paint? On the bloody ceiling? Give me a break. This guy was taking the piss. And what did he paint? Loads of naked men! Definitely a screw loose somewhere. He must have laughed all the way to the bank. I mean, this room had no windows. Leonardo da Vinci had yet to invent electricity. There was no way that those pious bastards could see what was painted on their ceiling. Banksy would’ve been proud.

Eventually we made it to the stairway to ‘get the hell out of this place’

and found our way to Saint Peter’s Square.

Square it is not.

Admittedly there were less people here than I had expected. I guess most were still stuck in the bowels of the Vatican looking for their wallets.

We ended our day exhausted from being ingested, digested and excreted by this centre of all pontification. We had only seen a small part of its inner workings. None could see the really interesting bits, such as where the Inquisition used to do their dirty work. Such things were not even mentioned.
I was also disappointed not to be personally welcomed by the Pope. After all, he can be in all places at the same time can’t he? Or is that his boss?
Hmm. Imagine being the most powerful person in the world and still having a boss.

The following day we headed for Ancient Rome.
We popped into St Angelo’s castle for a quick look round,

The views from here inspired a certain amount of awe:

We then wandered through numerous parks, piazza’s and ice-cream parlours on our way to the really old bits..
We descended the Spanish Steps...

and finally entered Ancient Rome.

Well, we did not actually enter it, as visitors were restricted to the sub-million numbers, and thus was booked up for the entire future of mankind. Never mind, we could see most from outside, snapping pictures over people’s shoulders and trying to exclude too much scaffolding.

The Roman Forum was in as many pieces as our own parliament...

and Caesar's Forum was of even less use. Just.

The final masterpiece was the Colosseum, big enough to hold up to 85,000 spectators at a time. No executions were scheduled for that day so we left disappointed.

And so we came to the end of our stay in Rome. Two more bodies to add to the tourist tally.
We had seen some great sights, had some tasty meals, drunk some coffee to die for. But did we find Paradise?
Yes.
When we got home.