I was about to write the title for this entry as "Vatican, Italy", but then it won't be correct. Vatican is a tiny area enclosed within the city of Rome, but none the less, it is a sovereign state. It has its own head of state (the Pope), and it actually has it own army of sort, the Swiss Guards.
These are the guards and they are supposed to be from Switzerland. How their uniform is supposed to help defend the papal realm, I don't know. Maybe the enemy will die laughing at the sight of what they are wearing.
The Vatican also has its own post office. I was thinking maybe they have their own telecom operator, too. Something like PopeTel, or StarPope or Pope1. I was disappointed when I checked my cellphone, it was locked on to TIM, Telecom Italia Mobile.
It even has it own courthouse. What the Vatican don't have is a prison. When the Pope's butler was convicted of leaking the vatican documents (the Vatileaks incident), they first placed him on house arrest while they looked for a Italian prison cell for him outside of Vatican.
The nearest Rome subway station is outside the Vatican itself.
I got too much of a headstart, and the St Peter's basilica wasn't even open for the day yet. So, I headed to the old city area.
Every nation has its creation myth. The Chinese see themselves as decendant of the dragon, the Japanese, the sun god. Rome was supposed to be founded by one of two brothers (Romulus and Remus) who, when baby, were suckled by a wolf. Hence the emblem on A.S. Roma. I have seen many who found it necessary to mention it was a SHE-wolf. Well, is that really necessary? Can the boys suckle on a HE-wolf?
The city is founded by the River Tiber, on an area of hills. There were many sloping roads in the city.
Even away from the main tourist spots, it is easy to run into fountains and sculptures.
The plank-man strikes again.
It was still too early for the tourist crowd, but I easily found the Spanish Steps. At this hours, the steps were clear of tourists, only two council workers were seen cleaning the steps. Later in the afternoon, the crowd would make it almost un-recognizable from the steps in the morning.
The sight of palm trees here in europe felt kind of weird to me, I always associate them with the tropics.
At about seven, I headed off to the Vatican.
There were already a small crowd heading out of the subway towards the holy city. But at least there were no queue.
I was let through the metal detector, but one of the asher requested me to leave my bags at the entrance to the St Peter's basilica.
The sun was still low on the horizon, and everything in the path of its ray were dragging a long shadow.
The St Pete is a quiet and beautiful place.
Clergies and nuns were performing their duty. Some were conducting mass for a small group of worshippers. There were visiting nuns, mostly from Africa and Asia judging by their looks, touring and admiring the artwork inside. Mixed in this, were security personnels in their business suit going about making sure the visitors don't misbehave.
Outside, you can feel that the Vatican is a seperate entity from the city of Rome (which is just across the street) by the lack of graffiti on it walls. Everything is clean and in its place. I visited the public toilet here. and there must be a small army of attendants to keep it pristine.What good is heaven if the toilet stinks. Anyway, I didn't find any damage done by the plankman. He may be everywhere in Europe, but not in the Vatican.
There were taps all around the vatican, I sipped some water from them. I hope if they are not holy, at least it would not give me stomachache.
When I got on the subway to leave Vatican for Rome, I saw notice about certain bus disruption because a gay pride parade was going on that afternoon. In some kiosk, they were selling the raindow-color gay pride flags.
I checked the route for the parade, I don't think it cross into the Vatican. That's soveignty for you, if the Pope allowed that parade in his realm, that would be crossing the metaphorical Rubicon.
No comments:
Post a Comment