Nana in Rome! {Papal Audience, Vatican Museums, Piazza Navona}

we were thrilled when Nick's mom came to visit us for a second time in the spring! during her stay, we had a nice balance of sightseeing and just relaxing time at home (and we happily took advantage of her offer to babysit the girls on more than one occasion!).

one of the best parts of her trip happened right at the beginning, when we went down together to pick up Greta from school. she knew that Nana was arriving that day, but i don't think she expected to see her at school!

best surprise ever!

we celebrated with gelato, and later that afternoon, i headed back over to St. Peter's to pick up our tickets for the papal audience on Wednesday morning.

the tickets are free, but you do have to go through the security line at St. Peter's to get them
the afternoon before the audience

i thought about keeping Greta out of school to attend the papal audience with us, but was leaning more towards just taking her to school. when i asked her what she wanted to do, she emphatically said she would rather go to school (ha!). so after we dropped her off on Wednesday morning, the rest of us headed over to St. Peter's Square to scope out some seats. the tickets allow you to access the seating area, but it's all first come first served, so some people arrive hours before the audience is scheduled to begin. we decided to take our chances and get there only about 45 minutes before things were supposed to start, and it worked in our favor: we sat just one row back from the front of the second section, which meant practically front-row seats to see the Pope go past on the Popemobile.

as soon as the first people caught sight of the Pope entering the piazza, a roar went up from the crowd. it was pretty surreal to see all the arms reaching out with selfie sticks, phones, and cameras (and others just reaching out towards the pope himself). i definitely wanted to capture the moment myself, but also purposely put my phone down after a few snaps to really soak in the moment.

he's coming!

and there he is! (no zoom!)

people were lifting their kids up over the barricade for a blessing from the pope, and when Nick
started to lift Cece over, she absolutely freaked out (i can't really blame her -- poor kid
had no idea what we were doing). so she stayed safely on top of Nick's shoulders. ;) 

 the rest of the audience lasted for a little less than an hour, with the pope giving a lengthy address about current events in Italian, and then translators reading a synopsis of the address aloud in the major world languages. everything concluded with a prayer. and then, the Popemobile came around again!

please note Cece clutching onto her precious waffle

the basilica after the audience was over

that night, Nana passed on some life wisdom to the girls and taught them new tricks for making shadow puppets!

the next day was Nick's birthday! unfortunately, he had to work (such is adult life!), but while Greta was in school, Cece and Nana and i went to the Vatican Museums. of course it started to rain just as we set out, so by the time we arrived at La Soffitta Renovatio for our pre-museum lunch, we were pretty soggy. but there's nothing like a plate of homemade pasta and a glass of house wine to revive the dampened spirit!

carbonara for Sabrina, tonnarelli alla gricia for me, rice suppli to share, and pasta bianca for Cece
(essentially just pasta cooked in butter -- the Italian equivalent of a kids' meal)

it me

thoroughly fortified, we walked the ten minutes up to the Vatican Museums entrance. i've visited the museums multiple times now and there is always something new to see! this time, we went to the Pinacoteca, the traditional art wing, which Rebecca and i had skipped during our previous visit, following Rick Steves' guide to the highlights of the museum.

Raphael's The Transfiguration. a mosaic copy of this currently hangs in St. Peter's Basilica.

another Raphael masterpiece: The Coronation of the Virgin

a stunning Caravaggio, Deposition from the Cross, which was originally commissioned
for a side chapel in Santa Maria Vallicella in downtown Rome. 

 we wound our way around to the Sistine Chapel, where we snagged a seat on the benches and took some time to absorb Michelangelo's masterpiece. by this point, i was resorting to snacks upon snacks to keep Cecilia from losing her mind. pretty sure lollipops aren't exactly allowed in the Sistine Chapel, but no one seemed to care.

technically, pictures aren't allowed in the Sistine Chapel either. but i just thought this
was such a parenting win / fail that i had to document it.

then we went outside to visit the carriage house, which holds a collection of various carriages and cars used by popes over the years.

this Citroen was donated to Pope Pius XI in 1930 on the occasion of the Conciliation between the church
and the Italian state. the car was also used by Pope Pius XII. 

this Mercedes Benz limo was donated to Pope Paul VI in 1965, and was later used by Pope John Paul II. 

this is the Nuova Campagnola in which Pope John Paul II was riding on May 13, 1981, when he was shot twice
by a would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca. he survived after undergoing emergency surgery. two American pilgrims were also injured by the same two bullets
that struck the pope. the video playing on the screen above the car is a documentary about the events of that day,
 as well as the subsequent visit the pope made to Agca in prison two years later to publicly and formally forgive him. 

in 2005, Ferrari auctioned off a super limited edition car to benefit victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami.
the proceeds from the auction as well as the steering wheel from the car were then gifted to Pope Benedict XVI,
with all the money going to charity. during the presentation ceremony, the pope drew an analogy between
 the complexity of the racing car's steering wheel and the nuances of guiding the church. 

that night, we celebrated Nick's birthday with chocolate cake and peanut butter frosting (hurrah for the Skippy peanut butter we can get at the seminary store!). then, Sabrina happily watched the girls while Nick and i went out to our favourite Tyrolean restaurant.

so much goodness on one platter.

happy birthday, indeed! (check out that enormous bottle of mustard.)

complimentary limoncello to round out the evening

the next day, we took a stroll through the center of town, to the German church, Santa Maria dell'Anima, the Pantheon, and Piazza Navona.

spring is coming!

some sort of treadmill/bike hybrid

Santa Maria dell'Anima

  

this gorgeous church was used as a stable by Napoleon. 

a partially edentulous memento mori...

Greta in the chapel of St. Lambert (a 7th-century bishop who was martyred
for speaking out against his adulterous king)

Deposition in another side chapel

the stunning high altar

a 1530 copy of Michelangelo's Pieta, sculpted by Lorinzetto

just a few people had the same idea to see the Pantheon

when we made it to Piazza Navona, Cecilia was thrilled to find the bubble man! Greta had fallen asleep in the stroller after her morning at school... but she woke up eventually to join the fun.

i love that Cece and the bubble man have the exact same facial expressions

finally, Greta woke up!

eventually, we had to head back home because it was time for dinner. but if you don't spoil your dinner with gelato at least once, did you even come to Rome?

Frigidarium, still hands down the best. except they don't have seating. but just look
at that white chocolate coating. i'll stand all day for that. 

early evening sun over Castel Sant'Angelo on the way home

the next day, Sabrina hid the girls' early Easter "baskets" (really bags!) as per tradition. Cece needed a bit of help to find hers, and Greta thought it was hilarious that hers turned out to be in the dryer (a classic hiding spot!).

the following day was Sabrina's last full day in Rome. we made the most of it, first going up to the roof of St. Peter's Basilica to visit the gift shop and take in the views from the colonnade. (this roof is just the first level of the whole dome climb -- you can continue to go up all the way to the cupola.)

no filter!

up on the roof!

the sky was just too perfect today

then we picked up Greta from school, dropped both girls off at home, and headed back down to Piazza Navona for a ladies' lunch! we scouted out a prime people-watching location at Vacanze Romane and enjoyed a fairly decent lunch (every place right along the piazza is a bit of a rip-off since you're paying for the location, but this restaurant was still reasonable and the food was pretty good). Sabrina finally got her Aperol spritz and i tried a Negroni for the first time. we could spend all afternoon doing this!

Piazza Navona, looking like a painting

equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth. yum, yum!

the fritti misti, literally mixed fried (vegetables). it's hard to go wrong with this one.

on our way back home, i spotted a bus heading in the right direction and so we hopped on. i didn't have any bus tickets with me, but the Rome bus system operates essentially on an honor system -- you don't have to show the driver your ticket (and they aren't sold on board the bus), but you have to be prepared to show evidence of payment, whether a physical ticket or an e-ticket on your phone, if security officers board your bus. this happens maaaaaybe once every few months. i didn't know of any place nearby where we could buy tickets, and since we were only going to ride for three stops, i was confident there wouldn't be any trouble.

except for the fact that at the second stop (one stop before we were due to get off), on tramped a duo of security officers! i decided to play dumb American (Sabrina later said she realized that i had conveniently forgotten how to speak any Italian), which didn't get us out of each paying a €50 fine (! that's one expensive bus ride -- for that, we should have hired a private driver to take us home). by the time we got it all sorted out, we had ridden the bus to the very end of the line, and had to wait for another one to take us back the way we came. that was the end of my freeloading bus riding ways! (since then, i've also realized that all of the tiny newsstands and bodegas sell bus tickets, so you don't have to walk out of your way to go to one of the few self-serve kiosks near us, and even easier, there's an app you can use to pay and validate tickets directly on your phone.)

to recover from that fiasco, we took the girls up to their absolute favourite place on earth: Bimbo Time. (Bimbo means kid in Italian, not ... well, you know, what bimbo means.) i'm pretty sure that this trippy, overstimulating arcade/carousel/ball pit is what they think heaven looks like.

then it was time to say goodbye! thank you, Nana, for a wonderful visit!!