When in Rome...

Gauss and I had been through Rome only once before following our ill-fated flight from Sri Lanka to Italy in 1982. My memories are hazy and few. Back then we landed at Da Vinci airport and had to get to Milano. Nerves jangled, we were not about to board another plane just then, so we took a bus to the train station. I recall rolling past the coliseum and being a little surprised that it was right there, although I was unable to muster anything resembling enthusiasm.

This time we vowed to pay attention.

I planned only one thing in Rome—a visit to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum. I made an online reservation a month in advance so that we would not miss it, printed the entrance voucher (NOT TRANSFERABLE printed across it in bold letters) labeled it with a Post-It, and added it to the folder of important travel documents. We had another aim for the day as well: to get Italian SIM cards for the cell phones we'd purchased in anticipation of the trip.

Despite the seven hour time difference between Minneapolis and Rome, we slept well. When we got up, Luciana made us a simple breakfast of bread, prosciutto, coffee for Gauss and tea for me.

She gave us an extra cell phone she had in the drawer, instructing us how to reach her in case of an emergency. I put our phones in my purse and reminded Gauss to bring down the voucher in preparation for our day in the city. Then Luciana drove us to the Metro station. Just after she dropped us off, Gauss asked me where the voucher was.

My reply is not printable here.

I won't go into the gory details of the marital spat, but it ended with Gauss phoning Luciana about our predicament. She was driving and didn't pick up. What else could we do but head into the city and hope for the best?

Once on the subway, we began to reason out a solution to the missing voucher. Perhaps we could find an internet bar and access our email. We could then print an extra copy of the confirmation email from the Vatican. Hope began to replace my frosty fury at Gauss. When we emerged from the subway near the Vatican, we spied a Vodaphone store directly in front of us. At least we could take care of our cell phone needs.

As a bilingual salesman helped us with the SIM cards, the emergency phone rang. It was Luciana. She had gotten Gauss's panicked message and had returned to her house to find the voucher on the dining room table. She would text our reservation confirmation number to the emergency phone, and that should get us in.

A few minutes later, as the salesman handed me two phones, fully operational for calls to Italy or the States, the message arrived. We crossed our fingers and headed for the museum. Our day was turning around!

The line of those without reservations, four deep, snaked for three blocks around the walls of the Vatican. At the front entrance we asked a guard where to pick up our tickets, and were waved in ahead of the waiting throngs. The confirmation number was all we needed, and in under a minute we were climbing the steps toward the Sistine Chapel.

We didn't know that the corridor on the way to the chapel featured a collection of maps commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1580. Gauss thought the mountains made them look like maps of Middle Earth.

In cartography heaven!

Middle-Earth style bumpy mountains

Detail of the Map of Italy

Detail of Venice

The hallway was really long, and while the ceiling was impressive, I found the design a bit busy.

Entering the Sistine Chapel was about as close as this agnostic gets to a religious experience. The sheer size and beauty of Michelangelo's frescoes made me gasp. I'd seen the ceiling in its entirety and many detailed views of its component images when I studied Renaissance art history in college, but nothing prepared me for the brilliance of the real thing. Gauss was left nearly speechless when I reminded him that Michelangelo had spent years lying on his back on scaffolding to complete the project.

Almost everyone is familiar with the main panels: The Creation of Adam, pictured above, and Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

But the images that I found most appealing were along the sides and ends of the ceiling: The Libyan Sybil in filmy orange and lilac, Isaiah dressed in a flowing pink robe, Zachariah draped in sage green.