Pictures of Rome

Just to make you all jealous – and to allow me to wallow in nostalgia now that I’m back in Australia – here is a quick pictorial tour of Rome as experienced by the Bossey contingent. My camera’s battery died on the first day there and I had brilliantly forgotten my charger so many of these photos were taken by others. Thank you to Anna, Anett and Kinsie.

This is the sculpture on the wall of the Papal Audience Hall. As we arrived there a couple of hours before the Pope, we got to spend a lot of time gazing at it. I quite like it.

This gives you a sense of the size of the Papal Audience. The three handsome men in the front row are Gerard, Abdul and Kongolo.

 

And this is the man we were all waiting for: Pope Benedict XVI, or “Benedetto” as the crowd chanted. We were relatively close to him, since we were in the front section of the hall. But we didn’t get a photo taken with him, making us possibly unique among Bossey groups.

This is Cardinal Kaspar of the Pontifical Council of the Promotion of the Unity of Christians welcoming us to Rome. The icon he is standing before shows St Peter (symbol of Rome) and St Andrew (symbol of the Eastern Orthodox) embracing as brothers – which in fact they were. It was a gift from the Ecumenical Patriarch to the Pope.

 

It wasn’t all Papal Audiences and serious meetings. Here are the “Ladies who Lunch” preparing to lunch on absolutely fabulous pizzas. I love Roman pizzas!

Part of the joy of being guests of the Pontifical Council was the special treatment we got as tourists (yes, sometimes hierarchy is fun). For instance, we got to go into the chapel which holds the Pieta. Ever since it was attacked in the 1980s Michelangelo’s Pieta has been protected by a window of bullet-proof glass. We got to go behind that window.

  

Then there was the fun, touristy sight-seeing.

Finally, just for fun, Aimee and I looking very cool in our sunglasses.