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| St. John Lateran: the Pope's Church |
The Pope is not just the Pope. He's the Archbishop of Rome. And, in that capacity, he is based out of a cathedral. So the Pope needs a cathedral in Rome. You may be thinking that is St. Peter's in the Vatican and you would be wrong.
I had two choices for final stop of the day. I could head north and visit some more ancient Roman museums or I could head east southeast for an important church. I chose church and headed past the Colosseum and to the basilica of St. John Lateran. When I saw the obelisk, I knew I was getting close, even though I didn't know St. John Lateran had an obelisk.
St. John Lateran is the church in Rome out of which the Pope is "based." St. Peter's is in Vatican City. That's not Rome. It's a sovereign nation.
St. John Lateran is huge and ornate. Statues of the disciples line the main hall.
It is ornate but not "showy" ornate.
But it's not over the top.
Well, too "over the top." Here is a monument to a past pope.
It's huge, but compared to St. Peter's, it's almost intimate.
One interesting feature was the corridor lined with confessionals, to have your confession heard in a particular language. The options were Italian (multiple Italian language confessionals because this is Italy), French, and the one lone Spanish language confessional.
No confessing in English at St. John Lateran. This must mean that it is a bit off the well-trod tourist trail. It wasn't crowded. Unlike St. Peter's. Easy in. Easy out. Short security line to run your things through a scanner because, nowadays in Rome, nearly everyplace has a security scanner (although, strangely enough, I don't believe the Pantheon did).
This is the exterior, facing away from the ancient Roman sites toward the rest of the city.
Across the street was a monument, I believe, to St. Francis of Assisi.
I am wondering if this wall was part of the ancient Roman system of aqueducts. It looks like it.
This is part of the Giardini di via Carlo Felice, a park.
It has cats.
And here is the view of St. John Lateran from Giardini di via Carlo Felice.
After all this walking around, I was hungry. I was in the mood for pizza. I chose Ristorante Porta Castello which, as the name would imply, is near the Castel Sant'Angello. Which is where Emperor Marcus Aurelius (whom we met in the prior blog installment) is buried.
I had the "fritto mixto" for an appetizer, which was a collection of fried things such as suppli (rice balls), zucchini blossoms, and -- this was the real unexpected treat -- deep-fried olives stuffed with meat.
I had a pizza al diavolo, which was topped with spicy salami.
It was done very well, but the crust was a little thinner than I like. So, to make up for that, I ordered dessert.
It is a ball of gelato topped with a wild cherry sauce and coated in crushed almonds. Quite delicious.
I walked back to the hotel and took one last side trip to St. Peter's Square.
It was rainy and only a few of us tourists were out and about. This will end the first part of the Rome trip. I'm off to Sicily for a few days before returning for one more day of Rome before heading home.
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