A visit to Italy (guest bloggers: Bob and LuAnne Mahoney)

We were scheduled to fly to Rome in the evening of Wed. Feb. 11 and arrive in Rome on Feb. 12th. A big snow storm was expected to hit our area Tues. night and continue throughout the day on Wed. We knew there was a good chance that our flight, and possibly our trip, would be canceled.

Tues. morning Nancy got on the phone with ABC tours and by noon on Tues. they were able to get us on a flight out at 6:10 pm. We all scurried to get out of work and school and to finish packing. We needed to get to the airport by 3:00 pm so it was a very frenzied couple of hours in order to make our flight. We did manage to catch the flight and get out of NJ ahead of the storm.

We were all pretty tired when we arrived. Ryan met us at our hotel (it was great to see him) and we went out for a quick dinner – quick in Roman terms because you are never rushed while eating in Italy.

Because we arrived in Rome a day early, we were able to attend the Papal Mass with Ryan in St. Peter’s Basilica on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was incredible that the first time we set foot into St. Peter’s, it was for a Papal Mass. For everyone who has seen it in person, you know that St. Peter’s is breathtaking. It is huge, and every inch of it is both an incredible work of art and a religious experience. After Mass, we walked over to see Ryan’s hotel and had lunch at Forno in Campo de’ Fiore. Ryan promised it was the best pizza we would ever taste, and he was right. (In fact, the next week after Ryan left on his trip to Northern Italy, we walked over to Campo in the pouring rain – while getting a little lost without our tour guide Ryan – just to have some more of the amazing pizza.)

We visited the Colosseum while Ryan went to class. We used the audio tour as our guide and Matt took some incredible pictures. We also visited the Basilica of St. Ambrose and St. Charles (which houses the relic of St. Charles Borremeo– his heart – on display for all to see), the Spanish Steps, the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which houses the chains used to hold St. Peter in his prisons in Jerusalem and Rome. It is amazing how many churches there are in Rome. We would go inside and couldn’t get over how large and beautiful they all were. Many house precious relics or art pieces. One church we popped into was an Augustinian church which had a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Villanova – coincidence? We also had time to walk around the Via del Corso and see the quaint shops. Ryan took us to a great place for dinner (it took us a couple of days to get used to eating dinner after 7:30) and then dessert (tartufo) at Trescalini’s. It was a full first day but very exciting.

Friday – Feb. 12th - 15th We woke up early and headed to the train station for our side trip to Florence for the weekend. We were fortunate that Ryan didn’t have any school commitments and was able to join us. Unbelievably, it was snowing very heavily in Rome. We were told that it was the first time it had snowed in Rome in 50 years. Probably not true, but it makes for a good story anyway.

In Florence, we had a short walk to our little family-run hotel – the Hotel Casci (which we would highly recommend to anyone). As we were walking to our hotel, we rounded the corner to see this tremendous church in front of us, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral church of Florence, also known as the Duomo. It is an incredibly ornate church on the outside with a much simpler decor on the inside. We climbed the 414 steps of the Bell Tower (Giotto’s Camanile) to see the most beautiful 360 degree view of Florence. This made for some spectacular pictures! We walked the Piazza della Signoria (an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio) The Piazza has a copy of Michelangelo's David as well the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.

The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Florence and its quaint streets and shops along with the churches of San Lorenzo and the Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross). Santa Croce is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce and is the burial place of some of the most famous Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Marconi. We had museum tours of the Opera of del Duomo to see Michelangelo’s statue of David. Ryan did a great job on his blog about our weekend so we won’t repeat what he already wrote about. Florence is absolutely beautiful – even in February.

We headed back to Rome on Sunday after mass at St. Maria del Fiore. One thing about these beautiful churches is that they are very cold inside. I guess because of the enormous size they are hard to heat so it was actually warmer outside than in. When we arrived back in Rome we visited the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (Basilica of Saint Mary Major) which is one of the five great ancient basilicas of Rome and one of the churches for which the Villanova students created a virtual tour. In the evening Ryan was our tour guide again as we visited the Pantheon and Trevi fountain. We did as our tour guide suggested and threw in coins over our left shoulder. We also had a wonderful dinner at Mickey’s with Ryan’s friends (the other three Villanova students). Nate, Jackie and Joey filled our dinner conversation with wonderful stories of their time in Rome. It was so nice to finally meet them and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. After dinner the nine of us went for gelato at Nancy’s favorite place, St. Crispino’s.

On Monday morning, (Feb. 15) we met Ryan at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls which Ryan is photographing as one of his internship projects. It is hard to describe how big and beautiful the Basilica is. Ryan can point you to the virtual reality tour previous Villanova students prepared for the Vatican website.

We then rushed back to the Vatican for what would be the highlight of our trip – a tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter’s. Tickets for the tour are extremely hard to come by, but Ryan was able to get us some. An American seminarian from Ohio who is studying in Rome was our tour guide. He led our group of 15 down into the excavations for what was an hour and a half history lesson and a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb. This guest post is already a little too long but we could go on and on about this experience. In summary, Emperor Constantine’s first basilica in the 4th century and then the present basilica in the 16th century were built over a pagan burial ground. Christian tradition had always held that St. Peter had been buried in a pauper’s grave in the burial ground in 64 A.D. All of the ornate mausoleums were filled in when the first basilica was built. It wasn’t until 1939 that the excavations discovered the long-buried mausoleums. The excavations continued toward the area under the great altar in the Basilica until the 1960’s when first the tomb and then St. Peter’s bones were found right where tradition had held they were supposed to be – directly under Michelangelo’s dome, under Bernini’s Baldachino, and under the great altar in the Basilica. The tour led us to a place where we could peer into a niche in the excavation to see St. Peter’s bones. We all stood in silence as our tour guide read from St. Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told Peter: “You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”

It would be hard to top that – that is, until LuAnne started holding hands with the Pope in the video Ryan has already posted. Ryan gave us a tour of St. Peter’s, showing us where the Villanova team went throughout the basilica to take their panoramic photographs. We had a terrific dinner at a small restaurant in Trastevere, and then had to say goodbye to Ryan since he was heading out early Tuesday for his trip to northern Italy. We would have to get by for the next two days without our tour guide and translator.

On Tuesday Feb. 16th we toured the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. It was very rainy and cold, but we had some souvenir shopping to do, so we endured the rain. We got to see the Pantheon – this time with rain falling through the oculus in the dome. We had a great dinner (which goes without saying) off the Via Veneto and then to bed to rest up for our last day in Rome.

Wednesday was the day we spent with the Pope. We attended the Papal audience in the Vatican auditorium. The Pope was greeted wildly by the 6000 in attendance. After the Pope read his Lenten message (since it was Ash Wednesday) he then greeted the various groups who were in attendance, many of which returned the favor by singing a hymn. We did some more souvenir shopping in and around the Vatican. Matt bought a miraculous medal – which will have some significance later that evening.

On Ash Wednesday, the Pope says Mass at Santa Sabina, an ancient and small church on Aventine Hill in the southern part of Rome. Somehow, Nancy had obtained tickets for us to attend the Mass. Santa Sabina is a rather small church- maybe holding about 1000 people. We were unlucky and didn’t get a seat but it turned out to be a lucky thing that we didn’t. We were able to stand along the rail on the center aisle and were right up front when the Pope walked in. Matt took video and we tried to take some pictures which turned out a little blurry. The distribution of ashes was different from what we are used to. Instead of making the sign of the cross on our foreheads with the ashes, the ashes were sprinkled on top of our heads by the priest. As it was nearing the end of Mass, LuAnne decided to take out the miraculous medal that Matt had bought and held it in her hand along with the rosary beads that Bob had given her when she was expecting with Ryan. She hoped that the Pope would bless them as he processed out of church. However, as he was walking out, he paused to listen to the man standing next to her. When he did, he held her hand with the miraculous medal and the rosary beads for a few seconds. The video Ryan posted shows the Pope stopping to speak with the man, which is when he held LuAnne’s hand. It was an end to an amazing day and a fantastic trip.

In all, we received the Pope’s Apostolic Blessing three times on this trip. As it was explained, the blessing is for us and our families and for all of our intentions. Our family and friends were always on our minds and in our prayers every time we visited a church, lit a candle, and each time we received the Pope’s blessing.

Thanks, Ryan for giving us the chance to make this trip.