Rome and Vatican
A saying went, "all roads lead to Rome", but now, it seemed all flights led to Paris. Beijing-Paris-Rome, (I was honored, by the way, to be accompanied by National Men’s Volleyball team sitting just besides me), I flew by. Well, whatever the path, here I was: the first station, Rome.
The typical summer of mediterranean climate didn’t feel that good,
especially when the streets were crowded with eager people calling and shopping, few of whom are Italian. Nearly all along the way I couldn’t find a photo spot. Anyway I was not here to see the tourists. Annoying! It seemed the tourists were destroying each other’s pleasure: I felt sorry and I’d rather slip into a corner.
I crossed a few streets, bridges, turned left then right, left then right and got my feet on the St.Peter’s square.
When studying history, the power of religion was sth difficult for me, a non-religious person, to understand, until I came to St.Peter’s. It was a sacred feeling that I found hard to catch, not in photos nor in words. Now looking back, I guess this feeling was created or effected by several factors together: 1. the greatness of the cathedral. Nearly 50 meters in height and 210 meters in length, a person, standing right behind the main gate of 15 persons’ height, immediately felt his own tinyness. (I thought of the word, Lilliputian) He would feel humble; he’d be scared; he needed a shelter; and then, he desired to believe in something or somebody that was powerful, omniscient and omnipotent, the God. 2. the light effect. Dim candle lights made it hard for people to find the direction. One needed to look up, to "follow the instruction". Some small beams of light shone in through the holy windows on the top, giving windows above a illusion of Heaven Gateways. All the beams centerd at the golden cross, which could be seen from all angles in the cathedral cause "the God is alway there." 3. the scluptures and murals. They were suffering, embracing, comtemplating and redeeming. The stories, or doings, of Jesus, were right on the walls around. Men are to be influenced by the environment. Once one was here, he became part of it. 4. the holy proceeds, like mass, prayers and baptism. These holy proceeds gave people senses of paticiaption, a feeling that they were leading a life, or at least a style, very like that of Jesus, (Think of the book Immitation of Jesus) that they were doing something, instead of nothing, and under the basic human intuition, they deemed the things they were doing were the right things to do. 5. maybe the most important one, not available by just attending a grand cathedral, the cultural immersion. Think of a family whose grandparents, parents were all pious catholics, what could the children be? Since young, they heard the stories, read the books, attended the church, met the priests, did the prayers just like their Dad and Mom and thus adhered to this habit. Habit was power. Repeat was power. After doing sth a thousand time, I thought I’d not be able to consider the rightness, even the meaning of doing that; I would totally accept it all; and if I could do that no longer, I die. Faith was gradually established through cultural immersion. And once established, it’d be hard to unroot it. I guess the true religious people didn’t have so many ideas about the things they believed in, cause the cultural immersion had made many things self-evidence.
Thanks to the genius of many thinkers, architecs, painters and sclptors (greatest of the great, Michelangelo, Raphel and Bernini included), I knelt down before St.Peter’s and got a few ideas of the religious power. I began to understand why people fought for decades, killed millions, (though contradictable to the the doctrine’s original intention): they fought for faith, without which they found it hard to live on. But whether it was worth it, well, God knows.
Interestingly, along the street there were springs for passers to drink. It was like a fire hydrant left open, which gave out water constantly. The water unused were not wasted: they sank down into the earth and became part of the underwater (where the spring came from, a perfect recycle model, right?) After a long long hike in the hot Italian sun, it was happiest thing in world to encouter this small "fountain in the heaven". Cool.
Colosseum I passed by. Great Romans! After thousands of years, the theatre they built was still filled with people.
Near La Fontana di Trevi, i found a ice cream shop which offered truly yummy creams, especially the lemon and blueberry ones. The taste was very very smooth. The sugar was low and the fruit were very very fresh. I’d come back someday, just for the ice cream! My friend told me that this small house was the barbershop Audrey Hepburn used to come by (in Rome Holiday) and I said that now it’d be the ice cream shop Neo used to come by LoL.
How to make a wish? Hold the coin with your right hand and throw it through your left shouder into the fountain (I did wrong). Two thausand years ago, people wished to ruturn to Rome; here, now, I made another one. I didn’t speak it out, or the magic would be lost lol.
Walking inside the city, I felt kind of regret over past glory (What an empire of three continents!). Still Rome and Romans kept their pride. I passed by a newspaper shop and Rome daily was placed right in the top and the middle as if Rome was still the center of the world. Before leaving, I made a final salution to the fallen aristocrat. Things are not the way they were before. Rome has lost its glory. And maybe she’s making a brand new story.
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